> Are these guys executing code paths that are normally not used? Yes: games are notorious for having poor multithreading and hitting one core with very high l

> Are these guys executing code paths that are normally not used? Yes: games are notorious for having poor multithreading and hitting one core with very high load. And unlike servers where you're rarely the only workload, the rest of the CPU will be rather idle on a desktop/gaming system. This pushes the CPU to a much more "imbalanced" mode (putting all the power and heat into a very small area) than is common elsewhere.