Man, I've been working a ton recently and didn't get a chance to really read over this until now.
So!
1. I do, if you're a serious builder, yes you do. I research my motherboard purchases exhaustively in every way I can before making the purchase, just by buying a pricey one, you're asking for trouble (I did that, ehem... Z690 Aorus Master that I evenutally broke some socket pins on while cleaning paste with a Q-tip, $500 mistake, learned the hard way).
2. Its a general public assumption that you can populate every slot and have top slot be X16 at all times unless there are some OBVIOUS limiting factors such as NVME drivers etc which is not the case here.
Well no, you're just plain wrong there. If the world of custom pc building were actually defined by the mob of "general public exception" on reddit, then independent repair shops would be rich, fixing people's self built machines who spent too much money because they thought that equaled better, I too fell victim to this, with higher costs, comes specialization, obscurity and products that don't conform to the norm. It's the same in virtually every industry.
Here's food for thought, when I would frequent reddit trying to help people, I kid you not, 85% of peoples' advice given was false a minimum, and would often make no difference and it some cases down right dangerous.
And by the way, your NVMEs slots and PCIE slots are basically the same thing.
GEN5 Intel ROG boards are designed for the eventual day of Gen5 GPU's and Gen5 HyperCards populated with 2 GEN5 Nvme drives. Then you will be saturated just like you want. So, rough estimate... Something like 3 grand just so you can have fully occupied lanes, but will they be saturated!!!? Nope. Everything will have loads of headroom and revisions a plenty for years to even approach it.
3. The fact that is problem should not exist is proven by endless posts of people trying to solve the none existent problem "as asus would put it" allover the forums.
My man, you don't know what you don't know. If you really wish to be in the know, saddle up, go to Microsoft Learn and start researching things like OEM System Bring Up, WHK Tests, DISM and custom image prep testing and deployment. And the list goes on and on. Then do the same by reading the big 4, Intel documents, 2 for your Silicon, and 2 more for the Southbridge, Aka, PCH the collection previously known as the chipset. There's probably about 1200 pages or so there to keep you busy, and make sure to let them know what you would change there as well. I hear they really appreciate that.
I wanted to help you man, but if you're a person with reasonable financial resources, part with the things you have build wise now, and get a Falcon Northwest.
You will be happier, I promise.
As i read your screenshot of the manual, i cant even wrap my head around how to interpret that.
The word "supports" should be removed and replaced with "will limit" because otherwise it seems like it supports both X16 and X8 so yeah, i should be able to get Х16 in both slots or i can also have X8 in both slots. How ever i like to set it in the BIOS is what it will do.
Thats how i would interpret that.
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