Abstract Protein turnover (PT), the continual synthesis and degradation of body proteins not leading to protein gain, is an essential high energy-demanding process. We assumed that PT might explain the between-animal variations of residual feed intake (RFI). The objective was to measure PT in extreme RFI cattle fed two contrasted diets (grass or corn-based). We conducted a RFI test for 84 days with 100 Charolais bulls and we selected the 32 most extreme (8 per diet and RFI group) for PT measurements using 1) the urinary 3-methyl-histidine to creatinine ratio, as a biomarker of the fractional protein degradation rate (FDR) of skeletal-muscle and 2) the isotopic N turnover rate measured in urine and plasma, as a proxy, respectively, of the whole-body FDR and the fractional protein synthesis rates (FSR) of plasma proteins. The 3-methyl-histidine and creatinine were determined from 10 d total urine collection. Isotopic N turnover in urine and plasma was evaluated by modelling the 15N depletion rate over 112 d following an isotopic N dietary change. Higher plasma FSR and higher skeletal-muscle and whole-body FDR were observed with corn-vs-grass diets (≥11%; P ≤ 0.03), in line with higher metabolizable protein and net energy intakes (≥10%, P = 0.001). Differences between extreme RFI animals were noted with the corn diets only, where efficient animals presented significant lower plasma FSR (-10%; P = 0.04) and numerically lower skeletal-muscle and whole-body FDR (-13% and - 8.9%; P > 0.16 respectively) than non-efficient. Non-significant differences were probably due to an insufficient size of our experimental setup. Plasma FSR is related to the PS of hepatic exportation, hence the lower plasma FSR observed in efficient RFI animals fed corn diets may reflect a lower organs to carcass ratio. Altogether results suggests that efficient RFI bulls fed corn diets had a lower hepatic PT with no-significant changes of whole-body and skeletal muscle PT.