Ye I know there is a hard learning cuve. And most people online play for years. BTW wonder what track and car u did becourse 1.30 isn't possible at BL1 XFG/ XRG.
I believe Freenas is mainly build to work true a webinterface and there aren't many setup options so I believe u have to work arround the system for that.
So I think he can better use an other small Linux option to run wine.
think the m.2 defo faster but my eyes can't see difference.
the m.2 u just put in mainboard some cover over it and u never know it's there
But I have to work on my fan noise level (quiet anoying) and it's just 1 fan that blows the air into my case. When GPU is fully used and all 3 fans blow at max also noisy But happy with my Corsair liquit cpu cooler it has 2 fans but I hardly hear those
Edit: My Old system was i7 3770k, 16 GB @1600, 250GB SSD (sata) with gtx1060. (my son happy with it)