compatibility_mode

First off, thanks for the guide. I think this is the first time my Skyrim has truly been stable and playable for consistent periods of time. I think its the leveled lists conflicts that were causing a lot of my CTDs in the past. The issue I am having is that my framerate simply tanks at many cities and towns, like Whiterun, Riverwood, Falkreath, etc. It dips into the low/mid 40s at Riverwood and Falkreath, and hits the mid/high 30s when I load into Whiterun looking down the main thoroughfare. This is baffling! Never expected a six year old game to tax my system like this, especially since I have pretty decent components. My framerate in almost all other areas is a solid 60+. I've done most of my testing at 1440p but I've tried out 1080p as well, and strangely enough the framerate tanks at 1080p as well! So much for my rock solid 60 fps dreams... I've been doing a bit of googling, and I'm thinking that it is just an issue that Skyrim has due to inefficient usage of CPU cores? What are the most taxing parts of the guide for framerates? Obviously the ENB will bite you a little bit, but it seems like AI overhauls or particle effects could have an effect as well? My 1070 should be more than able to handle SMIM's more detailed meshes, I would think. My Rig: i7 4790, 16GB ddr3 1600mhz, msi z97 mobo, GTX superclocked 1070, crucial 500GB ssd, windows 10 free edition