Probably get this topic time and time again, but I really don’t know what to do and I’ve already gone through other ppl’s threads.
I have all my settings on low (except for render which is automatic at 75%) and get a steady 120 fps, but I cap it to 70. Sometimes in game it’ll drop to 30/20/10 fps, making it unplayable for about 10 seconds before going back to normal. This happens at random. I know because I’ll be having big team fights and my fps will be stable but I can be walking out of spawn or even at the Menus and it’ll drop.
I’ve tried the suggestion of disabling HPET in Device Manager and it still didn’t work. I even tried disabling certain in-game settings like the Tips Display and POTG UI but still nothing.
I game on a laptop (XPS 15 8th Generation) with a cooling pad and when I play it’s always plugged in and I make sure the Battery settings are at Best Perfomance . I also don’t use any Razer equipment so that can’t be the issue.
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Almost certainly an overheating issue, I have been suffering the same.
As already said, it’s very likely to be overheating. Not surprising in case of a laptop. Some mobile devices have throttling mechanisms (in driver, firmware) that can’t really be changed. You either put less stress on the machine to generate less heat or improve the cooling that is very difficult with a laptop.
As a side note:
If you want more predictable GPU usage then use a fix render scale value instead of auto. This is an issue only when the optimal/desired constant isn’t available because the render scale dropdown contains only a few presets (50%, 75%, etc…) while auto can set other values too (I’ve seen 66%, 120%, etc…).
In the video settings I always use the native resolution of the monitor to make the cheap-to-draw 2D graphics sharp: menus, crosshair, hud, etc. The expensive 3D scene is then rendered in a different resolution that is determined by “resolution X render-scale”. E.g.: if your display is 1440p then you should always set the resolution to 1440p. With a renderscale of 75% the 3D scene would be rendered in 1440p x 75% = 1080p. Rendering the 3D part in 1080p and strecthing the resulting image to your 1440p screen is much cheaper than rendering in 1440p. Stretching has nearly zero cost compared to 3D render. Lowering your renderscale can lower your GPU usage significantly without making the 2D graphics (menu, crosshair, HUD) blurry.
FPS is also a multiplier on power consumption (and heat generation), but it’s a multiplier on the CPU too, not only the GPU. BTW, why are you using capped 70fps instead of a standard 60Hz video resolution with V-Sync/G-Sync/FreeSync?
Been having the same problem since the last update. I’m not sure that this is due to overheating, my GPU temperature hasn’t changed. Also, personally, I’ve noticed increased ping (not necessarily drastic, but thought i’d still share) during these fps drops.
Opened task manager while playing and when these fps drops happen my GPU usage goes up to 100% for a few seconds. i’ve never had this kind of issue before 
These standard tips can help resolve most Overwatch FPS drops:
- Reset Overwatch’s Video Settings
- Update your graphic card driver.
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Reset your graphic card driver settings., then make sure that your Graphic Card Driver control panel is configured correctly for Overwatch. This includes setting Overwatch at Maximum Performance (not optimal power) for Power Management and making sure it set to run on the graphics card and not the motherboard chipset.
- In drastic cases you may need to reinstall the driver and update to the most recent driver for your card. Remember to use Display Driver Uninstaller to completely clean out your old driver. Then download the most recent NVidia or AMD driver for your system.
- There have been other threads reporting that updating your system BIOS can help with some performance issues with recent patches. Please be careful if you choose to update your BIOS and look up your motherboard’s instructions on how to do this.
Also here are advanced tips I have written in Overwatch’s Tech Support forum that maximize your FPS performance in the game.