I don’t game as heavy as I used to but the few times I have got on anything I’ve noticed a significant fps drop from what it would be normally. A few games I’ve played recently for example:
WoW was 200 now 120ish
Cold War and Vanguard over 170-200 now 120
If the answer is get an antivirus then what would you guys suggest?
I check my drivers for any updates to anything every time I startup so it’s not that.
I’ve had a few in my time, but the most recent two are pretty robust and pretty unobtrusive.
The last one I had is Panda Antivirus. (I promise, it’s real). It was pretty good, but I was having trouble with it blocking certain things I was trying to do and wouldn’t let them through even when I told it those things were fine.
I switched to Vipre Antivirus Plus, and I’ve had nothing but good experiences.
Panda isn’t a bad program, it just didn’t work for me.
Either one of those would be worth a look.
DO NOT get Avast. You will hate yourself for even downloading that.
There is another one that starts with “Ad” something or other, that one is garbage too.
I’m so happy I came to the forums to ask, Avast is one of the top ones suggested on lists. Thanks 
It’s trash. They paid to be on that list.
Don’t use Macafee or Norton either.
Edit: Also, get a copy of Malwarebytes. Good for removing viruses if your antivirus fails.
Those are the other two. I dodged a bullet.
Vipre Antivirus Plus.
And make sure you pay for it. “Free” antivirus programs are never good. If you aren’t willing to pay for them, you might as well not even install one.
I used the free malwarebytes all through my childhood but I can actually pay for the real version of one now but didn’t want to pay for junk which I almost did had you not told me how bad those were. Thanks 
what version of windows are you running? reason i’m asking is that windows built in anti virus is good enough assuming you’re being careful.
I’ve been using Windows Defender for several years at this point, because keeping up with which third party AVs have or haven’t turned to dog poo is something I just don’t want to bother with.
That said, my Windows machines are limited in scope in their usage – e.g. my gaming tower is almost entirely dedicated to gaming, and the most my Windows laptop ever does is web browsing and Anki flash cards. Work, sensitive things like finances, etc are all taken care of on a Mac which isn’t impervious of course but much less likely to be targeted by way of representing only 9.5% of global marketshare (v.s. Windows’ 87.5%).
I also don’t poke around dodgy sites (e.g. pirate streaming sites) and keep my browsers running uBlock Origin to help keep malvertising at bay.
So for the more usual use case of one machine being used for everything, third party AV might make more sense. If risky site visits are a frequent thing or you don’t bother with adblockers, those may also be reason to use third party AV.
kind of unrelated but my adblocker now reports blocking 1 ad whenever i check the general discussion.
wonder what ad i’m missing and why they need an ad on here in the first place lol
For a rather simplistic approach,
I will say a few things:
You only need Windows Defender, but you might get Malware Bytes.
Bitdefender, Norton, Kaspersky are the best though Norton requires you to use a CC now to use them and I read you have to jump through hoops to get the CC removed.
If you buy any just get it as the Internet Suite they offer for the built in firewall and other programs that usually are good to have as well.
I use Windows 11 stock AV. Malwarebytes for weekly manual scan. Those are enough for me.
Just be careful when you download files from unknown sites. Use a Virtual Machine and install Windows on that. Open the suspicious file inside the virtual machine. Close and delete that VM if its infected.
If you dont go to sketchy sites to download sketchy files or open sketchy emails or click on sketchy facebook links, no need. Just use the one built into Windows.