What effect do unhandled errors have on the .NET CLR?

I am currently looking for issues causing CPU spikage within one of our applications on one of our servers, and I've noticed tens-of-thousands of unhandled errors messages in the event viewer, within a 3rd party forum software that we use 开发者_StackOverflowin one of our sites.

What kind of ramifications do unhandled exceptions have on the .NET CLR and would they contribute to an unusually high amount of CPU spikage/usage? I've also noticed a large amount of memory that does not seem to be GC'd.

Exception objects in .NET are, in general, a fairly heavy object in that they do take a bit of effort to be instantiated. So lots of those (whether handled or not) could be causing your troubles.

I'd be interested in seeing the frequency, though; tens of thousands over months? weeks? days? shorter?