High GPU usage while Codex app is "thinking" due to tiny useless animation

OpenAI's Codex desktop app consumes excessive GPU power—up to 1.5W and 70% utilization on an M4 Pro—due to a small animation displayed while the app is "thinking." Hiding the spinner reduces GPU usage to low levels, revealing the animation as the cause of unnecessary energy drain.

- Notifications /login?return to=%2Fopenai%2Fcodex You must be signed in to change notification settings - Fork 14.7k /login?return to=%2Fopenai%2Fcodex High GPU usage while the app is “thinking” due to tiny useless animation 16857 Copy link Copy link Open Labels appIssues related to the Codex desktop app https://github.com/openai/codex/issues?q=state%3Aopen%20label%3A%22app%22 Issues related to the Codex desktop app bugSomething isn't working https://github.com/openai/codex/issues?q=state%3Aopen%20label%3A%22bug%22 Something isn't working performance https://github.com/openai/codex/issues?q=state%3Aopen%20label%3A%22performance%22 Description What version of the Codex App are you using From “About Codex” dialog ? Version 26.325.31654 1272 What subscription do you have? Plus What platform is your computer? Darwin 24.6.0 arm64 arm What issue are you seeing? I see high GPU usage while using the Codex app, and it looks like it is caused by the tiny animation, which does not deserve such an amount of energy consumption. What steps can reproduce the bug? - Open any GPU monitoring tool. For example, macmon , since it allows 250 ms updates. I'm using my own tool StillCore https://github.com/homm/StillCore since it allows 100 ms updates. - Open the app and ask anything. It starts "thinking," consuming much more GPU power than expected. It's about 70% utilization and up to 1.5 W power on my M4 Pro. - Hide this spinner. You have two options: you can toggle the sidebar or collapse the chats group. Codex will still be thinking, but GPU consumption will drop to a low level, with spikes on UI updates. - Reveal the spinner again toggle the sidebar or uncollapse the chats group . You will see how the GPU level returns to high. You can clearly distinguish all three steps in the screenshot. The red line is GPU frequency, and the red area is GPU utilization. What is the expected behavior? The application should not consume this much GPU power for such simple tasks. This is significant, since even Civilization VI with a 60 FPS cap consumes less than 1 W of power during the first turns. Additional information No response Reactions are currently unavailable Metadata Metadata Assignees Labels appIssues related to the Codex desktop app https://github.com/openai/codex/issues?q=state%3Aopen%20label%3A%22app%22 Issues related to the Codex desktop app bugSomething isn't working https://github.com/openai/codex/issues?q=state%3Aopen%20label%3A%22bug%22 Something isn't working performance https://github.com/openai/codex/issues?q=state%3Aopen%20label%3A%22performance%22 Type Fields No fields configured for issues without a type.