Skipping frames in EA games with x2 Athlon!!!

Why is it that in all of my EA Games (Tiger Woods 07, Godfather, NFS: Carbon) skip frames and make it completely unplayable? By skipping frames, I mean that the video goes along and then skips about a full second at a time and jumps ahead, with the sound still playing where it should be. By the time the intro movie is done, maybe 10 seconds have gone by and the video is done, but the audio is still playing. Then, it cuts in and skips ahead with the audio when the video gets a chance to reset. HELP!!! Yes, this happens during game play, too, but the audio seems to correct itself and keep in sync with the video. Problem is that it is still skipping a full second ahead at a time. (kind of makes precision driving interesting to say the least)
All my sound/video/chipset/USB/Ethernet/monitor/Jumpdrive drivers are ALL current. My specs are listed below. I have heard something about the Cool and Quiet feature causing some problems with dual-cores, but I don't know what the f*** is going on!!!

Specs:
Athlon x2 4200
MSI K9N Platinum motherboard
Sound Blaster Audigy Platinum (old school, but still a battlewagon)
PNY GeForce 8800GTS XLR8
HD 150gb Raptor 10k SATA x2
Corsair 4x512 mb 800mhz DDR2 (5-5-5-15) 2 gigs total