OK, so I'm running the Warzones mod with a really clapped-out processor that is under enough strain as it is with vanilla Skyrim. Uninstalling it is out of the question, I've been using it for a long time despite the issues and I love it.

I'm running it on the lowest possible setting (1 NPC per spawn point) but anytime I get near a Warzone, the game locks up. It does not CTD, it just freezes. My CPU monitor then reports a usage from 95-100% (game working) to 0% (frozen), and I have to kill the game process. This isn't exclusive to Warzones though, which is why this isn't in the mods section - it happens any time my poor CPU has to do anything even remotely intensive - it can barely keep a constant 60 FPS in physics-intensive areas like Markarth, Riverwood or the Rift. My GPU should be absolutely fine, I know it's a good bit of kit but my CPU is such a bottleneck.

Until such a time as I can get rid of it and replace it with http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/AMD-Phenom-II-X4-965-Black-Edition-AM3-Quad-Core-3-40GHz-CPU-Processor-Retail-/160990639565?pt=UK_Computing_CPUs_Processors&hash=item257bca35cd, is there anything I can do to optimise the game? I know about turning off shadows, but I'm already running them on low and I'd rather not turn them off if there are alternatives. Preferably without uninstalling mods as we all know the issues related to that, it could do more harm than good. I'm also running a let's play which is being plagued by these issues (episode 5 in particular), as FRAPS is rather CPU-intensive.

Any help would be greatly appreciated.