Regarding dual channel slot placement, A1+B1 vs A2+B2

[Ruiner]

The manual for this board recommends the latter slot configuration (for 2 sticks) when OCing. Does anyone have direct experience in this regard (i.e. it allowed faster speed and/or timings)?

 

[Mr.Scott]

Board and bios is optimized for those slots when only 2 sticks are used. That is why the manual tells you to use them.
You should see an improvement in stability. Nothing overclocking related is guaranteed, but IMO, you should see a small improvement. I usually do.

 

[Woomack]

On Z7x and later motherboards usually 2/4 slots counting from CPU side are better for overclocking and are usually recommended to use as first slots when you have 2 memory modules. It's because of motherboard architecture and that traces are in straight line to the CPU and have lower interference.

 

[Ruiner]

Practically speaking, I just moved my sticks over to that configuration and was able to get memtest stable from 2000 to 2133.