Well total 16 + the Corsair PSU fan! 7 intakes 8 exhausts and 1 in the interior face the PSU. Intakes: 3 at the front, 4 bottom left. Exhaust 6 in AIO Fractal S36 Push/Pull config on top plus 1 more, all 120mm fans. Last one at the rear is 140mm.
I have the same adapter. It works fine in any 4x/8x/16x PCIe slot as long as it is not shared with the m.2 slots.
See the motherboard manual but i put it in the third or fifth slot
Any of them are good!
Got a Mushkin Scorpion PCIe 2.0 2x SSD 240GB for years now, work as my main drive now as game drive. Never give me problems. Recently got Samsung SSD 860 QVO 1TB, god SSD so far.
Got there: Windows 10 pro, Battlefield V, Strange Brigade, Need for Speed Payback, Wolfenstein II: The New Colossus, Tom Clancy's Ghost Recon Wildlands, and more... never had problems.