How to run Bulk updates without cron?

I am working in a staging environment on product updates and have a need to use bulk update, however in the staging enviroment if I try to start cron it causes the server CPU load to jump to 90% load or more. The site becomes unstable (both sandbox and live) because its overloaded. (I dont know why it happens but its always been that way)
So the question is how do I run bulk product updates instantly (not queued) or without having crons running?
I need it to run like it did in 2.2, where updates happen on click, not just “whenever”.