Is your Power Plan on "High Performance"? (in Control Panel)

You CPU would Turbo Boost @ 3.0Ghz as a minimum, and possibly as high as 3.2Ghz (for PCSX2). Maybe you could monitor it during a heavy load (i.e. with CPU-Z) and see what it says you're actually clocking up to.

If stuck at 2.2Ghz, you still shouldn't need Speedhacks that badly. If Turboing at all, your CPU should handle FFX rather well without Speeedhacks.

If running solely on your nVidia GPU, just make sure your internal resolution isn't too high, and slowing down gameplay. With FFX, I'm certain native resolution would be fine, and probably even 2x native scaling (3x might, but possibly could be much at times).

Bad ISO rip? Use Imgburn for a reliable rip.

LAME it still does~ even with 3ghz
it slows down just before a battle (even though the processing speed is way below 100%)
can people send me what configs they have for plugins?

I noticed when it slows down i get these pop ups in the window
not sure if they are relevant.

Sound:Wave Entry. (wave)ｷ
Sound:Wave Entry. (wave)
Sound:Wave Entry. (wave)
Sound:Se Data is not Entry. (se.sep)=
Sound:Se Data is not Entry. (se.sep)=
Sound:Wave Delete. (wave)
Sound:Wave Delete. (wave)
Sound:Wave Delete. (wave)
Sound:Wave Delete. (wave)ｷ
Sound:Wave Entry. (wave)
Sound:Wave Entry. (wave):
Sound:Wave Entry. (wave)
Sound:Wave Delete. (wave)
Sound:Wave Entry. (wave)