Darksiders 2 - 2600k vs 960

I was wondering what is up with some stuttering I was getting in Darksiders 2 and I found a fix for the bulk of it. I turn on triple buffering in nvidia control panel, use the vsync from D3Doverider and turn off vsyn in the game. I have to run it in windowed mode. This made it playable.

However I do notice that the game seems to sutter in certain areas and some dungeons. My friend said he is playing the game without stuttering and he didn't even have to mess with any settings.

My Rig
i7 960 @stock 3.2
Asus Ramage III formula MB
EVGA GTX 670 FTW
12 GB of Corsair Dominator RAM @1066

His Rig
2600k @ stock 3.4
Asus Z77 Sabertooth
EVGA GTX 670 FTW
4GB of Corsair Vengeance RAM @ 1333

We are both running the game from HDDs and in 1920x1080 (from the extensive list of options available). Does the z77 with a 2600k offer that much of a performance bump over my rig at stock? We plan on overclocking our setups but I was wondering if that would even help or if the game is just poorly optimized.