[TECK]

Hi Pseudomizer,
From my experience with this type of portals, I could explain why the MySQL is high.
Normally, the MySQL % is a lot higher then the vBulletin pages because the intense table scans.

VB is very intelligent in this area, it avoids to do full table scans and also it uses a very judicious system cache. All this results in a very low database usage and, indirectly a very low server usage.

Let me be more explicit.
For every option you enable in those portals, you perform extra queries, for each member that access instantly the page. The more members view in the same time the front page, the higher is the stress on the server.
So, if I enter your portal site, in an instance, the software will perform several queries that scan FULLY the hole tables in your database.

A good rule to keep in mind for coders is this: ALWAYS avoid full table scans, is the worst thing in the world.
If you have a very small forum with 200-300 posts, that will not really count, since your database is very small, but what do you do with huge forums who have 1 million posts?
Let's take as example "the x latest threads". The query will perform a full scan from ALL forums and ALL threads. I'm sure you understand why the MySQL % will raise to the sky... for an instance the server will be suffocated with the flood of information it has to compile, in order to display the results, and that?s only for ONE person... imagine what will happen when 500 users will visit in the same time your front page.
What vBulletin does is this: it puts a time/date limit, limits the search for 30 threads and also it separates it only for one forum, not all. So instead of scanning the hole forum/thread tables, it selects a very small portion of it.
The result is obvious, a very small server usage...

I hope that help you understand better the % usage.

Regards,
Floren.

PS. When I have time, I will release my portal version that have a very low MySQL usage.
I posted a screenshot, few posts above, so people can see that is possible to have good MySQL results.