Is my GPU dying? Situational throttling and possible artifacting despite being new

Sep 26, 2018
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My specs are as follows:

Core i7 4790 3.6 GHz
GTX 1070
10gb RAM (1x8gb 1x2gb (i know its bad, going to change it soon)
EVGA 400 N1
Asus H81m-k

I was playing Saints Row IV when i noticed some stuttering, something I've never had a problem with since I got this GPU 2 months ago. Upon inspection with MSI Afterburner, I found that my GPU usage was dropping to 0 each time.
A few hours after the stuttering, I experienced what I believe is artifacting (image below), which made me start to worry that my GPU is dying. I ran Skyrim for 30 min with no problems whatsoever, so I really don't know what to think. I got the card from Ebay, from a reliable seller, who claims it was 2 months old when I bought it. The PSU does run quite loud when I play games, but i havent had any problems before.

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