Intermittent Stuttering in NFSMW

I am running the following system:

AMD Athlon 64 X2 4400+
Windows XP 64bit edition
1GB RAM (4x256MB modules)
Leadtek 6600GT 128MB Graphics card

The game runs fine at 1024x768 with medium/low detail, but there is an annoying freeze thats noticeable when playing the game. It doesnt freeze for very long +- 0.5 seconds, but happens fairly regularily. I have taken the graphics right down to the lowest res and lowest detail setting, and the freezes still happen, so I doubt its caused by the graphics card. I have tried setting the processor affinity when playing the game to use a specific CPU, but still the freezes happen. I have also disable Cool 'n Quiet and tried, but with the same result. Any ideas?

The card is directx 9 which is the latest that is out right now, so its not a version problem.

When the game is running do a Cntrl-alt-del and see if there is anything else that is using the cpu alot, other than taskmanager itself.

As far as the cpu affinity, you did try both cpus individually right?
My friend has a speed up problem on GTA3 when running both cpus on his x2 3800.

Have you tried shutting down all unneeded programs before playing? antivirus, spyware/adware programs, etc.
Defrag drive.

Yep, the GT is a DX9 card, and works fine as i mentioned in all resolutions, just with the stuttering... I tried tha affinity thing as well, trying it both on just CPU 1 or CPU 0 but with the same problem.

it's the dual core processor; not the graphics card. there's another theread about the same problem