Media Player reduces CPU load

Well, I guess maybe that's not really a problem. But I'd still like to know what's really going on.

I've normally got Eudora 6.1.2.0 and Opera 7.54 running, maybe with a couple of other apps that aren't doing much. There's the usual stuff in the System tray, including NAV 2003 (yeah, I know -- it's a resource hog, but it doesn't get in my way).

With all that running, CPU load tends to run around 75%, give or take a bit. If I start Media Player (without actually playing anything), CPU load drops to about 25%. However, CPU temps drop very little, if at all.

Can anyone explain that for me?

I'm using MBM 5.3.6.0 to monitor CPU load (and temps). I've looked at running processes using ATM -- I can see no indication that anything is running that shouldn't be.