Minor Stutter in Open World games

Question

I asked this question on Tomshardware but got no headway, I'm getting desperate.

I have looked at other solutions but nothing has worked so far - I've ruled out a lot of things and really don't know what to put this under as I cannot identify what the problem could be.

This is a very minor stutter I'm encountering but consistent enough to be annoying. It really only lasts for half a second (if that) and reoccurs every 5 or 10 seconds. That being said, the games are still playable, but annoying to the point it actually gives me a headache playing. What's more is that this seemed to happen out of nowhere. I've tried looking through steamcommunity threads and a myriad of other websites to try to resolve the problem. I've tested and confirmed the problem in Grand Theft Auto V, Grand Theft Auto IV, ArmA 3, Sleeping Dogs, Metal Gear solid V and Hatred. Here's what I've done so far in the last 6 days since it started:

• v-sync is disabled and enabled
• frame rate was changed from 60 to 50 options with no different result with v-sync enabled
• temperatures are not high (GPU is highest hovering around 68 degrees Celsius)
• graphical settings were turned down (ALL the way down, no different result)
• attempted to run in a lower DirectX setting
• changed launch properties to launch Grand Theft Auto in offline mode
• verified integrity of game cache
• defragged the hard drive
• reinstalled the games
• drivers are up to date
• dusted out the power supply and other components
• ruled out the possibility of a faulty hard drive, attempted to install one of the games on a different hard drive, but with no different result
• I am not overclocking
• ruled out bad RAM by taking out sticks testing each one on the game

So since I have no idea what I'm doing at this point, I'm basically just gathering up whatever information I can in hopes someone can help me with this. I monitored my CPU usage (Gyazo/Screenshot of cores at the time of stutter) and watched for a pattern. The stutter occurs most noticeably in the last 3 cores that I highlighted in a red box. I don't know if this is just the processor not having anything to render at the split second it freezes or if it's the cores itself.

If I'm being dumb, feel free to correct me, I'm just trying what I know I can do. From my limited knowledge, I don't see anything else outstanding from monitoring these usages, RAM included.

Grand Theft Auto V gave me an option to run in safe mode - which basically launches the game in the lowest resolution possible with the lowest settings possible. It helped nothing, I'm pretty convinced it's not an issue with the games themselves. Again, if I'm being dumb, feel free to say so - "I have no idea what I'm doing".

My next thing I plan to do is try installing one of the games on an SSD to see if it helps at all, though that's not a miracle solution...

This has probably been one of the most hair pulling issues I've had so far PC gaming. I've theorized the graphics card going bad or the power supply not putting out enough power, but then wouldn't other games suffer as well in these situations?

Here are my system specifications:

• Windows 7 64-bit
• AMD FX-8350
• 16 GBs of DDR3 RAM
• GA-990FX motherboard by Gigabyte
• AMD Radeon R9 290X
• I have two 1 Terrabyte hard drives - my games installed on one and my programs and documents on the other
• I also have my operating system installed on a 250GB Solid State drive

Sorry for the lengthy post, figured more information is better than little information.

From my personal view, I've graded how badly each game performs from this stutter from the worst to the best. I don't know how important it is, but I figured it wouldn't hurt to add it:

Grand Theft Auto IV - There seems to be a second or two of frame drop accompanying the stutter here.

Sleeping Dogs - This Stutter actually hurts gameplay, it not only freezes for a frame and the audio cuts, but the game stops reading what button you were pressing at the time of the stutter.

Hatred - Stutter hurts worse than Grand Theft Auto V but not as bad as Grand Theft Auto IV

Grand Theft Auto V - It's playable, but annoying. I can't say I would be able to play through the story or have fun with this very noticeable microstutter every 5 to 10 seconds.

Metal Gear Solid V - The stutter seems to happen less here, either that or less noticeable.

ArmA 3 - Hardly noticeable, if it weren't for the audio cutting out, I wouldn't of guessed it was happening here, kind of ironic considering ArmA 3 is the most resource intensive of all these games - yet the stutter doesn't affect much here.

Any help is much appreciated. Thanks in advance.