Are there particular graphics settings that can make the game run faster?

I play on ultra graphics settings, other than water (second or third setting) and high-detail lots (2), and the game runs fine for me. What resolution are you playing at? Fullscreen or windowed, and have you tried the other one? Have you manually limited your in-game framerates? Are you using GeForce Experience? Your hardware should handle Sims 3 on ultra settings without any trouble, but sometimes a few other settings need to be tweaked to get things working properly.