Yep, that's not the problem. I came to the same conclusion, but further testing cleared everything up. My 1070ti's encoder just isn't fast enough for 4k at 60 fps. I switched over to 264 software and had a completely different experience. Although my i7-8700 fared better, it doesn't cut it either. I actually spoke with a rep at YouTube (shocking, I know) and we tested my bandwidth to google's PoP at generally 37,000 kbps. The reason I was sending less data is because my 1070ti's encoder couldn't keep up. A friend brought over his Zotac GeForce RTX 2080 Ti AMP Extreme and we switched back to NVENC. No dropped frames. 60 fps. no problems. Time to start saving.
Thanks to everyone who responded. I appreciate all of your suggestions!