Some users have recently had their accounts hijacked. It seems that the now defunct EVGA forums might have compromised your password there and seems many are using the same PW here. We would suggest you UPDATE YOUR PASSWORD and TURN ON 2FA for your account here to further secure it. None of the compromised accounts had 2FA turned on.
Once you have enabled 2FA, your account will be updated soon to show a badge, letting other members know that you use 2FA to protect your account. This should be beneficial for everyone that uses FSFT.
Using your settings at 2560x1600 I am seeing some hitching on dual 5970s - this applies to every level of MSAA for A-tested objects. Not a huge game breaker, its playable, but not ideal.
Reducing the overall MSAA to 2x reduces the hitching; turning off MSAA eliminates it altogether. If I were playing this game, I would probably turn off MSAA and run everything else at their highest settings. Minimum FPS with MSAA off was also much improved (40-60FPS) vs. 2x or 4x MSAA (in the low teens.)
I also tested Catalyst AI standard vs. advanced, and normal AA vs. Adaptive AA; no real difference in the 'hitching' experienced.
I ran the test using 16xAF and texture filtering set to 'highest quality.'
Based on the testing, I think this is a frame buffer issue, with the hitching resulting from VRAM-to-RAM memory swaps or something similar.