Monstieur

AMD EXPO kit just released and most boards are on their QVL:
https://www.gskill.com/qvl/165/390/1665020865/F5-6000J3040G32GX2-TZ5NR-QVL
 
 The primary timings are identical to the Intel XMP kit.

Drives with TCG Opal 2.0 can be used with SEDutil. Drives that also have IEEE 1667 can be used with BitLocker. Windows no longer supports hardware BitLocker by default as most drives are insecure - you have to force enable it even if the drive is supported. Software encryption is now the recommended configuration, just like Apple never bothered with SED support in FileVault 2. You can't trust random manufacturers with this stuff.

With NVMe ATA Security / Class 0, the entire physical disk is locked, similar to old school HDD ATA passwords. The bootloader will not be readable at all unless the BIOS supports NVMe ATA Security, detects that the disk is locked, and prompts you for the password.
 
TCG Opal 2.0 supports locking individual address ranges (effectively partitions) on the disk. It can leave an unlocked partition at the beginning to hold the bootloader / PBA like SEDutil or BitLocker, while locking the OS and data partitions. Thus the BIOS can boot into the PBA, which unlocks and chain loads the OS partition.
 
IEEE 1667 provides an interface to manage the locked address ranges via software. Windows uses this to setup BitLocker. SEDutil requires manual setup and does not require IEEE 1667.
 
EFI_STORAGE_SECURITY_COMMAND_PROTOCOL lets the PBA request the UEFI to send unlock commands to the drive through a device agnostic interface, instead of the PBA directly communicating with the drive's controller. BitLocker requires this. I think the Linux PBA used by SEDutil has built-in support for various controllers, so it doesn't require this UEFI extension.
 
NVMe ATA Security and TCG Opal 2.0 are unrelated and mutually exclusive. The drive must be configured to run in either mode using manufacturer software like Samsung Magician.

I have an RTX 2080 Ti > Marantz SR6012 > LG B7 via HDMI, and Acer Predator X27 via DisplayPort. I run the HDMI at RGB 8-bit 60 Hz HDR with 5.1 LPCM and it works perfectly. What exactly is not working with your setup? I also bought this HDMI 2.0 EDID emulator so that the primary monitor doesn't cut out every time I switch on / off the AVR.
https://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/product/1351398-REG/apantac_edid_ew_h_all_in_one_edid.html
 
You don't need a 10-bit signal for HDR - that's only for sources that do not support dithering, like Blu-ray players and consoles. A PC does 10-bit to 8-bit dithering at the source so HDR works perfectly at RGB 8-bit without banding.
 
I have a 5.1.4 Atmos setup so I bitstream Atmos content to the AVR. When playing games that specifically support spatial sound, I switch on Dolby Atmos for home theatre in Windows. I leave it off otherwise because it adds latency and prevents Dolby Surround upmixing from working on the AVR.

Also try enabling HDMI Ultra HD deep colour on the TV for the HDMI ports. Keep trying settings on the AVR till you successfully get passthrough mode working - the overlay should not be shown when adjusting the volume etc.

At the minimum the AVR should passthrough 4K 60 Hz YCbCr420 10-bit, because that's what consoles and Blu-ray players use. Try to get that working first, then work on 4K 60 Hz RGB 8-bit.

@blue2kid3 This is critical. GPU scaling needs to be "Perform scaling on: Display" and probably set to "Aspect Ratio". If scaling is done on the GPU it will always use the primary resolution reported by the TV which will certainly not be 4K 60 RGB 8-bit.

You can also use the HDMI 2.0 port to connect to the TV directly, and use a cheap passive DisplayPort to HDMI 1.4 cable for audio to the AVR. I wouldn't like three displays connected in Windows though. Two displays cause enough problems when one of them is an invisible AVR just for audio.
 
I would get rid of the AVR and buy a Marantz or Denon with Audyssey MultEQ XT32. XT32 and Dynamic EQ are a must for sound quality.

The VSX-LX304 specifications say 4K 60 Hz 24-bit is supported in passthrough mode. You may need to disable video processing / upscaling / conversion / de-interlacing on the AVR for it to update its EDID with the higher resolutions from the TV. When passthrough mode is working the AVR overlay will be disabled - it will not be able to overlay the GUI on top of the source video. When you press the menu button it should temporarily switch off the source video and change to a lower resolution to display the menu - that's how you know passthrough is working.

The VSX-LX304 specifications say 4K 60 Hz 24-bit is supported in passthrough mode. You may need to disable video processing / upscaling / conversion / de-interlacing on the AVR for it to update its EDID with the higher resolutions from the TV. When passthrough mode is working the AVR overlay will be disabled - it will not be able to overlay the GUI on top of the source video. When you press the menu button it should temporarily switch off the source video and change to a lower resolution to display the menu - that's how you know passthrough is working.

You just need to bridge two pins in that thunderbolt cable. It is an on/off switch basically, it doesn't provide any other functionality. 
 
You can see this guy using it on an Asus motherboard: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pRUPR88gcVk

I have a Shure X2u + WH20XLR which is super clear and picks up zero background noise while playing on my home theater system.

Those professional desktop microphones pick up everything including mouse clicks, keystrokes, and even barely audible noises outside on the street. You need a near field cardioid microphone like the ModMic.

I haven't noticed it running at all, but when you run it manually with normal priority instead of low priority it does use the disk more intensely. Both PrimoCache and Intel SRT cause data loss on unexpected shutdowns if you enable their write-back caches. Storage Spaces' write-back cache is safer, but the drives themselves are susceptible to data loss unless they are enterprise-grade with power-loss protection.
 
The pinning script should be a one time job, where you can just edit the folder name and run it for a different game. You can use this script as a starting point: https://charbelnemnom.com/2016/04/bulk-assigning-vhdx-to-ssd-storage-tier-with-powershell-hyperv-rds-vdi/

Tier optimization is a scheduled task which you can run manually or adjust the frequency of. You can also pin a file to the SSD tier. The powershell command only supports one file at a time, so you need to write a script to enumerate all the files in a game folder and pin them all. The cached data is not affected by reboots or crashes. The write-back cache on the SSD tier to accelerate random writes is also safer than other implementations.

Tiered Storage Spaces doesn't cache reads in real-time. It generates a heatmap and copies data to the SSD tier only at fixed intervals through out the day. So if you loaded a game, quit, and relaunched it, it wouldn't load from the SSD immediately. This approach is better suited for servers that access the same data throughout the day, but not for games which you play through just once. It does buffer writes to the SSD as a write cache though.
 
You need a real-time read caching solution like PrimoCache or Intel SRT to make data immediately available in the cache.

8-bit is visually indistinguishable from 10-bit if dithering is performed correctly. You need either a native 10-bit signal and an 8-bit + FRC display, or an ordinary 8-bit display with 10-bit to 8-bit dithering done at the source (game engine / GPU driver / media player). In either case, the application must render to a 10-bit surface.

8-bit is visually indistinguishable from 10-bit if dithering is performed correctly. You need either a native 10-bit signal and an 8-bit + FRC display, or an ordinary 8-bit display with 10-bit to 8-bit dithering done at the source (game engine / GPU driver / media player). In either case, the application must render to a 10-bit surface.

1080 Ti. I regret my 1080 SLI. It doesn't work in most games and is slower than a single 1080 in Dota 2.

The only solution using HDMI is to get a HDMI sound card like the Xonar HDAV or Auzentech HTHD. These have a HDMI input and a HDMI output. They show up like a regular audio-only sound card in Windows, but they combine the 7.1 audio from the PC with the video from their HDMI input, and output the combined signal via their HDMI output. You're supposed to connect the HDMI input to your GPU, but you can actually feed it a HDMI signal from another device. I used the Atlona AT-HDVieW VGA to HDMI adapter to generate a dummy HDMI signal. You don't need to connect the VGA side to anything as these active adapters always generate a blank HDMI signal.
 
Ultimately I abandoned HDMI since my Auzentech HDHT stopped receiving driver updates. I now use the multi-channel analog inputs on my AVR. Note that no DSP functions will work on most AVRs when using the multi-channel analog inputs, including bass managament. You must perform bass management on the PC.