My current playthrough in Skyrim seems to have been plagued with constant 1-2 second freezes, usually under certain circumstances. It's especially bad during dragon fights, as often when a dragon uses a shout the game will freeze up, or even when a dragon lands the game will freeze. This also applies to when I use certain shouts, most notably fire breath. These short freezes will also occur sometimes when using spells or when a finisher activates, or randomly while exploring.

The primary reason these freezes are bugging me (apart from constantly interrupting the gameplay) is that I played Skyrim about a year ago on my old Xbox before it broke, and the game definitely didn't freeze as bad or as often as this. It definitely can't be a savegame bloat issue, as my old save had over 200 hours and my current one is only 30 or so.

Is there any specific cause for all of these freezes? Is it an issue with my Xbox or did a recent patch seriously degrade the performance?