I recently installed a new WordPress theme, and it uses timthumb.php to render thumbnail images.
I found the CPU in my server becomes very busy. I use htop and see there are many timthumb.php processes poping up.
However, I don’t really want to turn off timthumb.php for two reasons. First, it does render better thumbnails if I want them to be in a fixed width/height. Secondly, some of the external images need some kind of proxy to be shown and timthumb.php serves this purpose.
This is my first time to know about timthumb, should I keep using it? Or should I find some other tools to do the same things? I also turned on WP Super Cache plugin, it does help a bit, but the CPU is still quite busy.
WP speaking, TimThumb is a dead horse:
Official WordPress Theme Guidelines: Themes MUST NOT use TimThumb.
ThemeForest Guidelines: Use of Timthumb is not allowed.
Either chose another theme or research for an alternative on Make WordPress, WordPress Answers and ThemeForest forums.