It consumes a fair amount of resources just idling.
I'm currently using a laptop that was mid-to-low spec when I got it a couple years ago. It was chugging, especially during video calls. Uninstalling the Widgets feature was enough to make it useable again.
You still get the widgets in some interactions (like left swipe from the edge of the screen). There must be a way somewhere to customize those as well, but getting rid of widgets altogether is a lot faster.