Does it make sense to buy a X370 Motherboard for overclocking?

First I have to say that I had never overclock anything before.
Keeping that in mind I think that right now Ryzen doen´t OC very well regardless of the chipset,
but I also think that future versions or Ryzen will, and then the motherboard will matter obviusly
that mean to buy a new CPU but also keep the old Motherboard, that also mean that when new
versions of Ryzen come also will new motherboards with posibly new features, what do you guys think?

One thing that X370 often offers is better RAM support(higher frequencies) which is useful for ryzen. With regards to overclocking you can actually do pretty well with many of the AB350 boards.

Thanks I didn´t knew that =D

Afaik no real difference, power phases are what you want i presume , the 4,2 ghz early oc record was on b350, it has no real disadvantages, all you want is features, power phases and bios that supports 3200 mhz

This is currently the best B350 Board due to it's top notch VRM

Asus PRIME B350-PLUS

This is a list of the Good ones:

Gigabyte GA-AB350-Gaming 3


ASRock Fatal1ty AB350 Gaming K4

http://www.asrock.com/MB/AMD/Fatal1ty%20AB350%20Gaming%20K4/index.asp

Asus PRIME B350-PLUS


MSI B350 TOMAHAWK

AMD has announced that these AM4 socket mainboards will continue to be used with all future iterations of the Ryzen CPU, so it can save you money if you think you might want the X370 level of features later on to purchase at this level today. Obviously, there may be other features such as new NVME, M.2 mounts that we cannot prepare for, but the CPU socket itself will remain the same. Of course, there are levels of features at various price points within each tier. I was able to find a special sale on a lower rung X370 that was less cost than the upper quality B350 I was considering.

If you want the best overclock experiance in both memory and cpu overclocking.
Then it "could" make sense to buy a higherend X370 board yes definitelly.
Not only do higherend X370 boards have a better vrm implementation for both cpu and memory.
But some boards like the Asus Crosshair VI Hero, Asrock X370 Tachi or Asrock X370 Professional gaming, also come with a B-clock generator aswell.
Which gives you a bit more options.

Of course certain B350 boards will also overclock totally fine.
And will basiclly offer the basic functionality needed for overclocking.
How well a cpu will overclock of course also depends on cooling and silicon luck.
With AMD overclock potential isnt really related to the chipset persee.
AMD Ryzen really needs more time to mature.
Overclocking and stability is still a bit of a shaky area atm.

Just raw powerphase count doesnt really tell all that much.
The quality and rating of the components used in the vrm implementation does however.
Still how well it will overclock will also depend on the cooling solution, and silicon luck.

how far can I OC normal (not made for Ryzen) RAM with B-Clock Generator?

Thats really hard to tell.
Ryzen platform is very picky with memory in the first place.
But it really can variate from board to board and memory kit to memory kit.
And there can even be a significant diffrent between bios versions.

Ryzen is a new platform, and really needs to mature.
They are still dealing with bugs and issues atm, but that will be resolved eventually..
motherboard manufacturers are working pretty hard on improving and bring out new bios versions pretty frequentlly.

Best thing people could do, is go to the website of the manufacturer of the prefered motherboard.
And then just check the memory compatibility list.
And oder a kit that has been tested on those boards.
next to that, wenn stuff arrives, allways update the UEFI.

Also wendell did a video on memory tweaking for Ryzen, which you may want to check out.

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The main differentiator is BCLK generators.

They let you get the ram to a higher frequency than you will normally, which is good for performance on ryzen vis-a-vis the infinity fabric system.

Even then, only higher end boards have them at the moment

if you want to OC, ram speed is important on the am4 platform.

The rest is pretty much interchangeable if you aren't going for a dual gpu setup

what do you think about thisone?
https://pcpartpicker.com/product/kZKhP6/asrock-fatal1ty-x370-gaming-k4-atx-am4-motherboard-fatal1ty-x370-gaming-k4

I just bought what appears to be identical except for the color scheme:

http://www.asrock.com/mb/AMD/X370%20Killer%20SLIac/index.asp?cat=Memory#Overview

Mine does not have the code readout display, but instead comes with the M.2 WiFi and antennae.

Yeah that board shares the same pcb as the gaming K4.
Also the same vrm aswell.
Its a step back from the taichi, which has a diffrent vrm.
But also the vrm on the K4 gaming and Killer board should basiclly be fine for some basic overclocking.
No B-clock generator though, but that aint something you gonne need persee.

You dont have to buy the highest end board to do some overclocking of course.
But if i personally look at the price diffrence between the better B350 boards,
and the midrange X370 boards.
Then in my opinion the diffrence in prices are relatively minor.
So i would allways prefer X370 over B350 with an R7 cpu.

I know the Taichi is the best board for the money but I originally was only budgeted for a B350 and the new 6 Core, but after finding out how bad the Crossfire is on the B350, I was forced to go X370. However, I was blessed with a deal on this Killer that cost me less than the B350 I was looking at. Now, I need a miracle deal on the 1700 after seeing that the 1600 only has 2 Cores that Turbo and a lower frequency "All Core Boost". This whole build project is only possible for me due to finding bargain sales of each component going back to last year. For the price, the Killer SLI/ac was the best I could do.

Would it be right to say that the VRM on this X370 is better than the top B350 mainboard?

Its better then most B350 boards atm yes.
Remember that X370 chipset has a pci-e connectivity advantage aswell over B350.
And also support for Sli and what not.

I had my finger on the buy button of an MSI Tomahawk Arctic until somebody informed me of the second card in Crossfire being run off the Southbridge chipset reducing both 16x lanes to 4x.

As to the better VRM of the Taichi, would it be safe to say that Ryzen won't OC much better on that 16 power phase than the 12 phase I currently own?

The aorus k7 also has a bclk too.