Unsadisfactory frame rate. Software, hardware or setting?

[Nyrii]

This is very very weird. Just out of the blue Mario Kart ran at a constant 60 frames with LLE, less speed hacks, 3xIR and no AA, still not good enough for my hardware I think but better than before. Actually this is something I noticed as I've been tweaking and testing all day; expected performance per setting seemingly fluctuates and I really can't explain it.

Anyway I ran an Afterburner test as well as HWinfo64 for the cpu using Mario Kart. The first one used the settings in my sig, everything maxed, played from the menu till 2 Sherbet Land laps.

https://cdn.mediacru.sh/Q_OqoNpBCI5a.png

And for the second test I removed AA, 3xIR, enabled skip EFB, Ignore format changes, EFB to texture, Accuracy: fast. Audio at LLE and the rest of the speedhacks unchecked. This is seemingly my "optimal" setting; If I untick a speedhack, increase IR or ass AA I go below 60fps is many tracks and get occasional lag spikes.

https://cdn.mediacru.sh/jJTRLEwJ4rfm.png

Hopefully that clears things, i'm not too sure what to make of them myself.