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Judging from https://www.fpgadeveloper.com/list-of-fpga-dev-boards-for-pc..., your best bet is one that plugs into an M.2 slot.

Sounds like this might be a start of a series of articles on HaD, hopefully they'll cover making a custom endpoint. Because that is also my impression that you need beefy fpga and possibly even proprietary ip cores to play with pcie, but it'd be cool to be proven wrong there

This is my understanding too. Is it possible to use an fpga without built in diff pairs and serdes, and use the io's that are built with a suitable high speed clock domain for a "diy" differential pair? Maybe not as fast, but still faster than any other io on the fpga?

Get yourself a mid-end FPGA before it is too late then. :)

Tinkering with anything physical is always going to need appropriate tools, so there is probably no better way than to find some of the tools as cheaply as possible.