The reason why it is doing it in the 2 later patches is because these patches for all the good they did put more stress on performance. Many players have decided to downgrade from 1.0.7.0 to 1.0.4.0 because the performance levels are better.
If there was a general fix on this then we would all be on 1.0.7.0 but instead we are not and as a result those who want to use 1.0.7.0 have to compromise a bit on performance unless they have a powerful PC.
I myself have a decent rig and play on 1.0.7.0 but i do have to reduce a couple of the in game settings to eliminate natural lag of the game - Poorly optimised game
If you are going to downgrade to 1.0.4.0 then you will have to use Xliveless - see below link for info
http://gtaforums.com...taiv-xliveless/
I am not sure if you can still access multiplayer on xliveless - see link for thread on that
http://gtaforums.com...with-xliveless/
I have never downgraded to 1.0.4.0 so I can offer no advice on this - Also If game is Steam download, not sure how to downgrade
There are also command line switches which can help with certain performance levels on different PC's but again, I have not had to use so use with caution - see link
http://gtaforums.com...dline-switches/
To be honest, for all the fuss you will have to undergo to try to get 1.0.7.0 to work well, just try turning settings down but it is your choice
Good Luck!