Response when asking for support for which PCI slot to use on an Asus board with an Asus Thunderboltex 3-TR:
"We can only recommend you to refer to your thunderbolt owners manual/manufactuer for any spec or performance queries as we can only provide support for ASUS manufactured products.
Whilst we are aware of what you mean by the PCIe lanes we cannot give judgement on whether altering the properties will effect your device as there is no offical ASUS documentation to support or recommend any such configuration changes. "
Follow up once I specified that I was speaking about an ASUS product:
"Both intel and PCMAG also state thunderbolt 4 is backwards compatable with thunderbolt 3 however the speeds will default to that of thunderbolt 3, id recommend giving these a read if you are having issues with the backward compatability. "
Referring to PCMag is outrageous and I never specified I was speaking on backwards compatibility regarding Thunderbolt 4 to 3 -- my device is a Thunderbolt 1 that I cannot connect to Thunderbolt 4, hence my downgrade to Thunderbolt 3; this was in response to me emphasising that no ASUS documentation clarifies that Thunderbolt 4 is not backwards compatible to 1, since I was referred to ASUS documentation -- I had to point out that the documentation is flawed.
At no time was my question about which PCI slot to use was answered.
Claimed loss: Functionality of my music production studio, prohibiting confident use for public performance.
Desired outcome: Apology, refund on Thunderbolt 4 card (reconciliation for absurd technical "support"), and a technical answer for which PCI slot to use for Thunderboltex 3-TR card, if makes a difference connecting to Chipset PCI lanes or CPU PCI lanes.