OK, I figured the root of the problem, i went through the events of reinstalling the software, fiddling with power management modes, to max frames rendered at a time, remounting the GPU and even changing the PSU cables.
Turned out the fix, is to completely reinstall Asus GPU Tweak II software.
before you do a restart, i suggest going into the Nvidia Control Panel and resetting ALL of the settings to Factory (if you get better performance with certain settings keep those). [this is just what worked for me]
Then do your restart and you should be good to go.
it was quite refreshing to see the clocks go to 2033Mhz after being stuck at 633mhz for so long.