Question about FPS Drops in COH2

Since I had the privilege of working on map patches, I had a lot of time in maps looking for FPS drops.

Typical things that kill FPS:
- Snow/Mud painted on terrain (increased terrain mesh triangles).
- Snow/Rain falling from sky (Sprites killing fill rate).
- FX markers for smoke/fire/etc (Sprites killing fill rate).

While testing these things I usually had V-Sync ON. Meaning only drastic FPS drops were noticed.

I am looking at WATER as an FPS killer and have turned off V-SYNC to get the best possible numbers. I am working in Windows on a 60Hz monitor.

WHAT I AM SEEING IF:
1) my mouse is in the main menu 190 FPS.
2) my mouse is in the play area No unit selected 180 FPS.
3) my mouse is in the play area with unit selected 170 FPS.
4) my mouse is in the play area AND near cover so mouse icon changes 130 FPS.

From a code perspective 1 should differ from the rest since it does not need to scan what world object is being hovered over.

2 and 3 should be different since the code needs to search where units should be placed in cover.

2 and 4 should be the same. But the addition of the cover mouse icon seems to murder my FPS. I am not sure if it is because I am at a low actual refresh rate or if this is normal behavior.

QUESTION:
Does anyone here get the #4 FPS drops with an actual high refresh rate monitor?