My problem is that when a game is running in the foreground, in Full Screen mode, any applications on my second monitor (such as youtube videos, videos, not app specific) drop their frame-rate to about 2-3 FPS.
It seems like some sort of power management option that I can't track down. As far as I can tell, it's not due to the GPU not being able to keep up. For instance, my PC can play League of Legends at about 280FPS when the framerate is uncapped. If i cap it at 60FPS using the in-game option, it has no affect on the performance of the background app.
Summary
Operating System
Windows 8 Pro 64-bit
CPU
Intel Core i7 3820 @ 3.60GHz 42 °C
Sandy Bridge-E 32nm Technology
RAM
12.0GB Triple-Channel DDR3 @ 533MHz (7-7-7-20)
Motherboard
Gigabyte Technology Co., Ltd. X79-UD3 (SOCKET 0) 37 °C
Graphics
DELL U2713HM (2560x1440@59Hz)
DELL U2713HM (2560x1440@59Hz)
1280MB NVIDIA GeForce GTX 570 (Gigabyte) 58 °C
Hard Drives
212GB Volume0 (RAID)
1863GB Western Digital WDC WD20EARS-00MVWB0 (SATA) 36 °C
1863GB Western Digital WDC WD20EARS-00MVWB0 (SATA) 34 °C
Optical Drives
No optical disk drives detected
Audio
ASUS Xonar Essence STX Audio Device
Operating System
Windows 8 Pro 64-bit
Computer type: Desktop
Graphics
Monitor 1
Name DELL U2713HM on NVIDIA GeForce GTX 570
Current Resolution 2560x1440 pixels
Work Resolution 2560x1400 pixels
State Enabled, Output devices support
Multiple displays Extended, Secondary, Enabled
Monitor Width 2560
Monitor Height 1440
Monitor BPP 32 bits per pixel
Monitor Frequency 59 Hz
Device \\.\DISPLAY4\Monitor0
Monitor 2
Name DELL U2713HM on NVIDIA GeForce GTX 570
Current Resolution 2560x1440 pixels
Work Resolution 2560x1400 pixels
State Enabled, Output devices support
Multiple displays Extended, Primary, Enabled
Monitor Width 2560
Monitor Height 1440
Monitor BPP 32 bits per pixel
Monitor Frequency 59 Hz
Device \\.\DISPLAY5\Monitor0
NVIDIA GeForce GTX 570
Manufacturer NVIDIA
Model GeForce GTX 570
GPU GF110
Device ID 10DE-1086
Revision A2
Subvendor Gigabyte (1458)
Series GeForce GTX 500
Current Performance Level Level 3
Current GPU Clock 845 MHz
Current Memory Clock 1900 MHz
Current Shader Clock 1690 MHz
Voltage 0.988 V
Technology 40 nm
Die Size 520 mm²
Release Date Dec 07, 2010
DirectX Support 11.0
OpenGL Support 5.0
Bus Interface PCI Express x16
Temperature 57 °C
Driver version 9.18.13.2018
BIOS Version 70.10.55.00.01
ROPs 40
Shaders 512 unified
Memory Type GDDR5
Memory 1280 MB
Bus Width 64x5 (320 bit)
Filtering Modes 16x Anisotropic
Noise Level Moderate
Max Power Draw 219 Watts
Count of performance levels : 3
Level 1 - "Default"
GPU Clock 50 MHz
Memory Clock 135 MHz
Shader Clock 101 MHz
Level 2 - "2D Desktop"
GPU Clock 405 MHz
Memory Clock 324 MHz
Shader Clock 810 MHz
Level 3 - "3D Applications"
GPU Clock 845 MHz
Memory Clock 1900 MHz
Shader Clock 1690 MHz
Things I've tried:
1) Updating the graphics driver
2) Setting windows power mode to High Performance
3) Reset Nvidia Global Performance settings to default