Issue since the time of vista, thats why this problem virually never happened on XP

Here is the solution
Exit all Windows-based programs.
Click Start, type Regedit in the Search box, and then double-click regedit.exe from the results above. If you are prompted for an administrator password or confirmation, type the password or provide confirmation.
Browse to and then click the following registry subkey:
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\ControlSet002 (sometimes called ControlSet001) \Control\GraphicsDrivers

On the Edit menu, click New, and then select the following registry value from the drop-down menu specific to your version of Windows (32 bit, or 64 bit):

For 32 bit Windows
Select the DWORD (32-bit) value.
Type TdrDelay as the Name and click Enter.
Double-click TdrDelay and add 8 for the Value data and click OK.

For 64 bit Windows

Select the QWORD (64-bit) value.
Type TdrDelay as the Name and click Enter.
Double-click TdrDelay and add 8 for the Value data and clickOK.

Close the registry editor and then restart your computer for the changes to take affect.

This puts a delay on the TDR checker of 8 seconds thus the GPU can stop responding for 10 seconds, usually, this fixes the problem, if you are still suffering from this issue (after updates or a reinstall of drivers, you know all that annoying driver stuff)
Then do this, do the same thing but instead of “TdrDelay” type “TdrLevel” enter the data value as 0 (it is set to that natively, but double check) then delete the TdrDelay,

Restart

That completely turns off Tdr checker, so now windows 7/vista/8 now works more like windows XP