Occasional stutter - Sometimes multiple per game

Hi guys,

I’ve recently built a PC and installed windows, all the correct drivers and also updated bios and the SSD firmware. All the temperatures and performance is spot on. The problem is, I seem to stutter at random points while playing any games, especially in loading screens. It isn’t really consistent but it does happen sometimes. The games I currently have installed is BF5, BO4, GTA 5 and Forza horizon 3. I have also played 3 consecutive games of BF5 without stutter, but then it will eventually stutter at some point again, sometimes just randomly and sometimes when explosions and a lot of stuff is going on. Black ops 4 seems the worse where 1 stutter can lead to multiple in intensive situations. My CPU stays at 4.6GHZ constantly playing games but never goes to 100% usage or even 80% in games for any core and I’m getting around 100-130FPS for all games I play and down to 70 when intensive and no stutter occurs. If I run a GPU benchmark and a stutter occurs the minimum FPS goes down to 30’s or 20’s.

What I’ve tried:

1. Enabling/disabling XMP

2. Increasing the voltage in increments

3. Switching to new display port and new monitor

4. Updating Bios

5. Clean re-install of nvidia drivers

6. Reseating GPU and RAM

7. Stress test - nothing goes over 70 degrees

8. Memtestx86 with XMP enabled - no errors

9. Checked that RAM voltage stays the same

10. Reconnecting PSU cables

The stutter isn’t that noticeable in forza besides when the game is just loading in but it still happens. Is there anything else I could try or look for in a stress test??? I’m really at a dead end

Mobo - Asus Maximus hero XI

CPU - 9700k

RAM - Corsair vengeance RGB 3000mhz

GPU - Asus 2080 STRIX

PSU - Corsair HX850i

OS drive - Samsung 970 m.s NVME

Games drive - 1TB WD BLACK

CPU cooler - Corsair h150i

Case - Corsair 570x Case fans - 6x Corsair LL*

Extra info: Cold boot causes PC to boot twice and then the third time only gets into windows. Other people having this with the same board as well, I resolved this by changing the dram frequency to 2933MHZ instead of 3000MHZ, which stopped it but not sure if it’s the right thing to do?

I also had a 2070 which died and the pc still *had stutter before that so I believe it isn’t the graphics card