Question Sudden frametime spikes & FPS drops (RTX 4070 + i7-14700KF) despite low utilization — need help isolating the bottleneck

[methodss]

Symptoms

• PC is a little over 1 year old; ran flawlessly until the last few weeks.
• In-game I held ~250 FPS uncapped (usually capped at 144 to match the monitor).
• Recently I’m getting random heavy stutter in almost every attempt to play; FPS drops to 50–80 and can stay there for a while or until system restart, sometimes even when not much is happening in-game.
• CPU/GPU/RAM stay ~30–50% during the dips; temps are normal.
• Issue persisted on Windows 11 24H2; I switched to Windows 10 to test—problem still appears.

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Specs

• CPU: Intel i7-14700KF (RMA replaced 13700KF recently; vendor told me to keep the 14700KF)
• Motherboard: ASRock Z790-C, BIOS 18.03 (current)
• GPU: PNY RTX 4070 12 GB VERTO Dual Fan
• RAM: 32 GB (2×16) DDR5-5200 CL40, TeamGroup 1Rx8 (XMP on, stable)
• Storage: 1 TB NVMe SSD
• OS history: Windows 11 24H2 with multiple clean installs → moved to Windows 10 to test; issue persists
• Display: Dual 144 Hz monitors via DisplayPort; primary resolution 1920×1080
• PSU: 700 W, 80 Plus Gold

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What I’ve already tried

• DDU → clean installs via NVCleanstall; tested multiple driver versions including the latest.
• Full wipes and clean installs of Windows 11 (multiple) and now Windows 10.
• Brief GPU OC (Afterburner) → didn’t help → back to stock.
• Process Lasso (affinities/priorities) → didn’t help → reverted to default scheduler.
• Windows “debloat” (Chris Titus Tool) → currently back to default after fresh installs.
• Game files reinstalled/verified; temps and power delivery look normal.
• MemTest86+ (both DIMMs) passed.
• OCCT CPU+RAM, Linpack, 3D Adaptive, and VRAM tests passed.
• Combined stress test (FurMark + Prime95) with HWiNFO logging shows expected synthetic behavior (GPU hits power limit under FurMark; CPU briefly reaches Prime95 thermals). No evidence of PSU sag or thermal issues that would explain low-utilization stutter in one game.
• I’ve likely tried a few other items over the past several weeks as well.

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Monitoring behavior

• During FPS drops, utilization stays below 50% and no thermal limits are reported, yet frametime spikes occur.
• Task Manager + HWiNFO show stable clocks; no obvious throttling.
• I can share HWiNFO logs from stress tests and additional captures if needed.

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Looking for guidance on isolating frametime drops when utilization is low and no apparent bottleneck.

 

[methodss]

HWiNFO logs can be found here saved as .csv
https://filebin.net/jzixr6wik9ggw11s

 

[bill001g]

Did you try older video drivers. I tend to never update video drivers no matter how much a game nags an tells me I am outdated. Nvidia has been putting garbage out lately. Even worse they don't remove drivers that have major bugs they just release new ones so you never really know which old driver is safe. Used to be a company would mark drivers that had errors so you didn't install them unless you really wanted to.

 

[methodss]

Did you try older video drivers. I tend to never update video drivers no matter how much a game nags an tells me I am outdated. Nvidia has been putting garbage out lately. Even worse they don't remove drivers that have major bugs they just release new ones so you never really know which old driver is safe. Used to be a company would mark drivers that had errors so you didn't install them unless you really wanted to.

Yes I did. I cannot remember the specific versions I used as it was several weeks ago but willing to try a different driver version if you have a specific that you think works best.