ASUS wasting no PCIe lanes, introduces GPUs with SSDs
ASUS has come up with an interesting idea for consumer graphics cards.
ASUS RTX 4060 Ti DUAL with M.2 SSD slot, Source: Tony/ASUS
Currently, most entry-level and mid-range cards are limited to PCIe Gen4 specifications and 8 lanes. All of these cards, however, will ultimately be inserted into a full-sized 16-lane slot. This is why cards like the RTX 4060 series and Radeon RX 7600 have a full-sized connector, but not all lanes are electrically connected.
A video from Tony Yu (GM at ASUS) shows a concept RTX 4060 Ti Dual graphics card that could solve the problem of unused PCIe lanes. The company has figured out that instead of making fake lanes, those could still be used for other devices, such as high-speed SSD storage. They presented a concept RTX 4060 Ti GPU with Samsung 980 PRO 2TB SSD attached to the backside.
ASUS RTX 4060 Ti DUAL with M.2 SSD slot, Source: Tony/ASUS
Most SSDs these days are installed in inconvenient and tight spaces on motherboards, often requiring a removal of graphics cards or even large CPU coolers to gain access. That said, users would have much easier access with M.2 SSDs installed on a graphics card.
Likewise, it is important to take into consideration that the graphics card will require greater power, but this should not exceed 10W at maximum, which is nothing an RTX 4060 Ti couldn’t handle with just one 8-pin power connector.
ASUS RTX 4060 Ti DUAL with M.2 SSD slot, Source: Tony/ASUS
Tony outlines all the aspects of such an installation, including the potential heat issues that may arise due to its connection to a graphics card. It’s interesting to note that the temperature has actually dropped by around 10 C and the performance loss is minimal (6.8 GB/s instead of 6.9 GB/s for the peak sustained read speed).
This is because the PCB has been cut to allow airflow from the GPU cooler to reach SSDs, in fact, the cooler is directly attached to the SSD with thermal pads. The GPU and SSD simply share a large cooler, and one can imagine that triple-fan installations would only make this even more efficient.
ASUS RTX 4060 Ti DUAL with M.2 SSD slot, Source: Tony/ASUS
Worth reminding our readers that the ASUS RTX 4060 Ti is not the first graphics card to feature on-board SSDs. AMD had this idea many years ago for professional Radeon SSG based on Vega architecture, only that tech had a different purpose and SSD replacement was a lot less convenient. Nevertheless, we can only hope this idea will be used more widely by the mid-range GPU segment in the future.
Source: Tony from ASUS via @Olrak29_
