Theory: Types of Motherboards

At the moment, there are many motherboards with different chipsets to choose from, with different form factors and various hidden features. A key feature in memory overclocking on Ryzen systems, though, is the DIMM topology and number of memory slots.

Dual-Slot

For the fastest RAM frequencies, one would want a dual-slot motherboard, such as the ASUS ROG STRIX B450-I Gaming. Because of the lack of two additional memory slots, the quality of the signals and reflections on the line are seriously improved. This does limit capacity and upgrade headroom, though.

Daisy Chain

Next come the boards implementing the Daisy Chain topology. Their advantage lies in the optimized length of the line (bus) between the processor and the A2 and B2 memory slots. Examples of boards implementing this are the ASUS ROG Crosshair VII, ASUS Prime X470-Pro, and MSI X470 Gaming M7 AC.

T-Topology

To finish off this list of boards, there are those with the T-topology (i.e., ASUS ROG Crosshair VI and ASRock X470 Taichi). These boards overclock memory mediocrely by comparison—up to 3466–3533 MHz. The main advantage of such a board is the high overclocking potential of four module configurations.