Resolution
In the end the problem ended up being that my CPU was un-clocking itself to protected against overheating. The reason for this was due to the fact that there was a thick layer of dust between my CPU fan and heat-sink. After buying a can of compressed air and fully clearing out the heat-sink and case of any dust and debree my Maximum Frequency was back up to 100% (actually 104%).The Story
Over the last few weeks I had been fighting a losing battle with my computers performance. Recently having upgraded my Windows 7 installation to Windows 8 I started noting that flash based video play back was sluggish and would cause the rest of my tasks to feel delayed. Jumping to the obvious conclusion that Windows 8 was the problem I decided to re-install Windows 7 and get my PC back to where it was previously. Much to my annoyance and surprise the problem persisted even on Windows 7. My computer at this time is no slouch and contains the following specs- Intel Core i7
- 24 GB of ram - triple channeled
- 2 Videos Cards - Nvidia GeForce GTX 570 & Geforce 275
- SSD Drive for C: