Microstutters in Games After a Few Hours of System Uptime

**Problem Description**

I've built a new computer in November (see specs below) running Windows 10. When starting the system games initially run fine, but performance degrades starting maybe about an hour or two in. Then, games begin to microstutter (huge framerate-drop for a very short time (<1 second), see example below) once every roughly 40s. As time goes on the game then stutters almost every 10 seconds. Between the stutters games run fine, i.e., at 130 FPS.

**Troubleshooting Attempts**

1. Tried turning off Xbox Game DVR, as well as disabling all Xbox services via msconfig. 2. Used the Windows Performance Monitor to see if one or more system resources was being exhausted at the time of stuttering. However, neither CPU, network, GPU, nor disk usage spiked at the relevant time points. Temperatures of the system are also on the cool side. 3. Disabled all non-Microsoft services using msconfig. Had no impact on occurrence of the issue. 4. Clean installing GPU drivers. No effect either. 5. Disabled memory DOCP, i.e. ran it at stock latency and 2133mhz. No effect. 6. NEW: Turned off full-screen optimization. No lasting success. 7. NEW: Reseated GPU and memory. Connected GPU via 2 power cables rather than 1 combined one. No effect.

I really don't know how to proceed from here. My hunch was that the problem is related to the Windows 10 Creators Update, because that is where googling my symptoms led me: this thread on the [nVidia forums]( https://forums.geforce.com/default/topic/1004600/geforce-drivers/all-games-stuttering-with-fps-drops-since-windows-10-creators-update/1/)

However, since the PC is fairly new and I don't recall precisely when this issue began occurring (I had initially dismissed it as being a game-specific irregularity), I don't know if the problem can be immediately associated with the OS. On the other hand, resource monitoring seems to suggest the system components run fine and the fact that performance worsens over time could in my opinion intuitively only be explained by heating issues, which do not exist.

Any diagnostic recommendations are highly appreciated. Thanks for your time!

**Example (visible right at the start)**

[watch on youtube](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5BiBP3EoGsM)

**Specs**

*Ryzen 1600X @ stock, *Asus - PRIME B350M-A, *G.Skill - Ripjaws V Series 16GB (2 x 8GB) DDR4-3200 @ ~~2400~~ 2933 *SanDisk - Extreme Pro 960GB SSD, *Gigabyte GTX 1080 Ti Aorus *Corsair AX1500i (don't ask) *Windows 10 version: 10.0.16299 Build 16299