Hey Bud, I'm running an i7-4770 at 3.50 GHz with 32 Gigs of RAM and displaying it with an EVGA GTX 1070. My settings are pictured below. I have absolutely no issues with stutter or quality of the scenery on any of the maps - Normandy, Persian Gulf, Caucus or NTTR. Sometimes it takes a minute or so to load the cockpit when I join a MP mission but for offline it is instant.
If it's been a while since you have been in a DCS mission, I think that you'll be very pleasently surprised with the improvements you'll see, especially with the rig you're using now. The carrier environment is now pretty amazing, if you can get past a few issues with spawning in MP, but there are work arounds and the world of naval aviation is about to get even better with the next carrier module. The Heatblur Tomcat is nothing less than eye popping beautiful and exceptionally well done. You mentioned looking forward to the Jug, which I am as well but I am also anxiously awaiting the F4U-1D which will probably see the light of day in 2020.
When you get settled back into DCS World, drop us a line and come fly with us. I have no doubt that in another week or two, some of us will be buzzing around in a shiney new F-16!