Why is my Gainward RTX 5080 Storm OC clocking down in Fortnite?
While rapidly cranking defenses, my frame times were jumping from 4ms to 22ms without any warning, which is a total nightmare for competitive play. I noticed the Gainward RTX 5080 Storm OC core clock was swinging wildly between 2.1GHz and 1.6GHz, creating a massive scheduling lag. I first tried enabling Low Latency Mode in the NVIDIA Control Panel, but while input felt snappier, the clock jumps persisted, which was incredibly frustrating. I eventually used MSI Afterburner to hard-lock the core clock at a steady 2.3GHz and nudged the voltage to 1.08V. According to RTSS, the frame times finally converged from that chaotic 4-22ms range to a tight 3.8-4.2ms window. It wasn't a smooth ride—the system triggered two driver resets initially until I backed the clock down by 30MHz. Now, core temps sit between 62-67℃ with fans humming at 1600 RPM. The game finally feels consistent, though the power draw is slightly higher now.
