My greatest takeaway from this is that I'm shocked he even uses that general control panel setting. I always skip past that and use the advanced settings, as I would expect most PC gamers to do. The general slider is like an idiot button/idiot light.
Also, to everyone saying that AF added a 10% performance deficit, moving that slider over all the way affects a lot more than AF. To really iron out what setting is causing his issue he would have to change individual settings under the advanced set to find which one is causing his issue. And note, that's his issue. I've never noticed anything like what he's seeing on my cards, though I usually have my NCP set to use the advanced settings (so I can specify some specific global settings).