Multiple sprites uses 100% of GPU?

[slime_friend]

I have a game using a hex grid, where the tiles can be colored multiple colors in real time.  To make this, I generate sprites for all the hex tiles, and then tint them when needed.  This results in about 800 sprites, which is a lot, but I thought that would be okay.  The problem I'm having is that when I check the task manager when running this game, it says its using 100% of the GPU -- even long after the hexes have been generated, where I would expect a big performance drop.  This happens even when I disable tinting of the sprites, and turn the sprites into images instead.  My question is: is there a better optimized way to render a bunch of tint-able images, that dont need to update? Because obviously I'm missing something.

Thanks,

Taylor Anderson