My IPB site was still using suPHP, but was using Opcache. This will cause SIGNIFICANT system load on a busy site, as due to the nature of suPHP as a PHP handler, it does not work well with Opcache. This resulted in system load going to 20+. So, what I've done is switched my IPB site over to PHP-FPM to support Opaching as well. Now server load is sitting at about  0.24 as well.

Is it ok to keep the site community.permaethos.com on the PHP-FPM handler? It is keeping server load VERY low.

Yes, that's fine.