X370 Gaming X fixed voltage mode and LLC

From all the tests I have seen, the Gaming X achieves comparable overclocks to other similar priced boards, boards with LLC settings. Bare in mind, it is unfair to compare a $160 Gaming X to something like my $200 X370 Taichi. X370 is a chipset, not a guaranteed overclock. Cheaper boards based on the X370 chipset make sacrifices to be affordable, typically in the power design (mosfets, VRMs, VRM controllers) which are some of the more pricey individual components. In some cases you may even be better off picking up a similarly priced AB350 based board for overclocking, with a cheaper chipset but similar price the extra cost usually is due to a beefier power design.

Basically, the Gaming X is not a bad board, it delivers everything it is designed to and offers an affordable, well featured and good looking board for significantly less than most other similarly featured boards. It is however not going to deliver the same overclocking experience of more expensive boards. ASRock's Gaming X and Killer SLI boards are not high end boards, they are low cost X370 solutions that offer the full feature set of the X370 chipset. Some sacrifices are made to allow that low cost. If you want overclocking on an ASRock board you should be looking at the X370 Gaming Professional and X370 Taichi which both have very well designed power delivery. I suspect that ASRock chose to have low cost X370 boards because of the nature of AMD's market presence as a "Bang for the Buck" option. Offering lower cost boards to a market dominated by a value focused consumer base. Not everyone overclocks and the extra PCIe lanes, SATA ports and other features offered by X370 vs AB350 may appeal to users that plan on minimal overclocking or stock use. 

All that said, don't underestimate the impact that AGESA updates have had and will likely continue to have on overclocking. I am using BIOS version 3.00 on my Taichi because it gives me the best overclock with my hardware, 3.10 and newer all require me to turn down my OC by 100mhz or more to be stable or up my voltages more than I am comfortable with to maintain my OC. Ryzen may have been out for a while now but it is still in it's infancy as an architecture, it will be some time before the platform is fully mature and AGESA updates become simply for new CPU support.

Ryzen CPUs seem to be achieving 4.0 and beyond far less frequently with newer steppings too. As time goes on this often happens, demand forces binning to be less stringent and lower overclocking results follow. The difference in performance between say 3.8 and 4.0 is negligible in gaming tasks anyway and if you are looking at a CPU for serious number crunching (where the difference would be more apparent) then Ryzen isn't where you should be looking anyway. 

I had a similar conversation to this in another thread quite recently. Overclocking shouldn't be about achieving a set goal, it should be about getting the most you can out of your particular system without sacrificing longevity due to high thermals. Any overclock is free performance. I have all too often seen CPUs burn out in half the time they should because a user pushed their voltage too high for that 100mhz more, 100mhz that made literally 0 difference to their gaming performance in a system bottlenecked by a GPU...... Because overclocking has become a relatively easy process now it seems people have gotten caught up in who's is bigger contests and missed the point of the exercise. Enjoy your build, have fun with your OC and benchmarks to see how much performance you have gained vs stock. Every CPU/motherboard combo is different and will get different results, not everyone will "win the silicon lottery" and get crazy high clocks at low voltages. Guys, professional overclockers can burn through a dozen CPUs to break a record, this is why they are most often sponsored. Hardcore (non pro) overclockers often spend hundreds of $$ more on CPUs that have been pre tested to achieve higher than average clocks. Expecting to just go online, order a bunch of parts and get guaranteed comparable results is just unreasonable. For every high OC you see on a forum/website there are a hundred people that didn't bother posting their significantly lower result. It shouldn't make you hate your system or feel cheated, overclocking is not guaranteed and should not be treated as such. You get what you get and should enjoy the fact that you got that little bit extra for your money. Leave the who's is bigger contests to the people willing to throw money away on burning out multiple CPUs to set records or get that guaranteed X or Y ghz by spending 3x what the CPU is worth. Learn from the experience, learn from your mistakes and above all have fun with your system 

Happy new year to all