you can always get a 10gbe (or 2.5gbe, 5gbe, etc) network card for $50 or so, and M.2 NVMe can be added with $10 pcie addon cards as well (it's just a physical

you can always get a 10gbe (or 2.5gbe, 5gbe, etc) network card for $50 or so, and M.2 NVMe can be added with $10 pcie addon cards as well (it's just a physical adapter to the pcie slot, electrically it's still nvme). unfortunately now we get into the discussion about 3.5 slot GPUs that overhang all but 1 or 2 of your pcie slots, and the general lack of PCIe connectivity on consumer boards... you can sorta work around it sometimes with vertical mounts/etc. But it's annoying and takes work/planning. I miss the days of X99 and having 28 lanes at my disposal, and every GPU being 2-slot or at most 2.5 slot such that I could actually use those lanes. It's also been really annoying watching the arms race between GPUs and motherboard slot spacing. For a long time, GPUs were 2 and 2.5 slot, so motherboards went to 3-slot spacing for their slots. But then 3-slot and 3.5-slot GPUs became common, which overhangs the middle slot (or puts the GPU right up against a card placed in the middle slot). What we really need now is for motherboards to go back to 2-slot spacing so you get a slot in the #4 spot to give 3- and 3.5-slot cards some breathing room...