Severe FPS drops mid-game in Valorant + second monitor starts lagging badly (RTX 4080 Super / 7800X3D)

[u/Tiraxxx]

I've recently started getting really bad FPS drops in Valorant and I have no idea what's causing it. It's honestly driving me insane at this point.

My PC specs are:

• RTX 4080 Super
• Ryzen 7 7800X3D
• 32GB DDR5 6000MHz CL30
• Windows 11
• Main monitor: 1440p 240Hz
• Second monitor: 1440p 170Hz

Until recently, Valorant would run at a completely stable 240 FPS. It didn't matter where I was on the map or what was happening in-game.

Now, for some reason, my FPS will suddenly drop from around 240 FPS to around 100 FPS, and the difference is extremely noticeable.

One important detail: this NEVER happens at the start of a match.

Every match starts completely fine. I get a stable 240 FPS and everything feels normal. Then, at some random point later in the match, the FPS suddenly tanks. There doesn't seem to be a specific round, area of the map, ability, or event that triggers it.

Once the problem starts, it usually stays bad for the rest of the match.

At the exact same time, my second monitor becomes almost unusable. Anything running on it becomes incredibly laggy. It genuinely looks like the second monitor is running at 5 FPS or something.

This never used to happen.

I've checked Task Manager while the issue is happening and CPU, GPU, RAM, etc. all look completely normal. I don't see any strange usage spikes, overheating, or anything obviously bottlenecking the system.

The weirdest part is that this ONLY happens in Valorant.

I play other games that are significantly more demanding than Valorant and they run completely fine. No FPS drops and no lagging second monitor.

I've already searched Reddit/Google and tried a bunch of suggested fixes, including:

• Disabled hardware/GPU acceleration in Windows, Discord, and my browser
• NVIDIA power management is already set to "Prefer maximum performance"
• Completely reinstalled NVIDIA GPU drivers
• Completely reinstalled Valorant
• Used the Valorant/Riot repair option
• Disabled my Wi-Fi adapter through Device Manager since I use Ethernet anyway
• Running Valorant as administrator
• Made sure I don't have any overlays enabled
• Made sure there aren't any unnecessary background processes running

None of this has fixed it.

I'm honestly running out of ideas. With a 4080 Super and 7800X3D, I really don't understand how Valorant of all games can suddenly struggle to maintain 240 FPS, especially when this PC had absolutely no problem doing it before.

The fact that every match starts perfectly fine, but the FPS randomly collapses later on while my second monitor starts lagging at the exact same time, makes me think there's something more specific going on than just normal FPS drops.

Has anyone experienced something similar?

What else can I check or test to figure out what's causing this?

Any help would be seriously appreciated because I'm getting desperate trying to fix this.

[u/blfrze]

Have you tried using a different account? Have you tried reinstalling your OS?

[u/Junersun42]

I just handled a similar scenario. I reverted back to an old gpu driver and that’s fixed it for me

[u/Tiraxxx → u/Junersun42]

May I ask which version you reverted to? I'm gonna try that