httpd takes 10% CPU

My server became overloaded today

9:17am up 1 day, 7:07, 1 user, load average: 4.34, 5.80, 5.68
455 processes: 448 sleeping, 7 running, 0 zombie, 0 stopped
CPU states: 70.8% user, 5.5% system, 0.0% nice, 23.6% idle
Mem: 1028456K av, 1003716K used, 24740K free, 1352K shrd, 202500K buff
Swap: 1024088K av, 604K used, 1023484K free 509552K cached

I notice some httpd processes take more that 10% CPU.
Is this normal?
How to reduce the load without decreasing the performance?

 

 

 

 

Top