1. CPU i5 4690 (up to 3,9 GhZ) - Usual Harddrive (non SSD) - 8GB Ram - Geforce GTX 970.
2. Everything on highest settings. 1080p
3. Flame artillery or smoke barrages bring my FPS down to about 10.
This is simply bullshit.
Do not try to optimize your PC to run CoH2. It's not possible because some hardware runs better and some worse for no reasons.
Take a game like Fallout 4 or Battlefield 4. If you can run these games, you have a good PC.
If you can run CoH2 smoothly, you're just a lucky guy.
+1