RGB lighting, factory overclocking, or some kind of colored shroud are nothing compared to adding an M.2 SSD slot directly to the graphics card. That’s ASUS I thought so, deciding to follow the already beaten path. Meet the Dual GeForce RTX 4060 Ti, equipped with a built-in PCI-E M.2 slot. And yes, this is not just a curiosity.
It just so happens that most new video cards use only 8 PCIe 4.0 lanes, when they occupy all 16. For example, the AMD Radeon RX 7600 or NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4060. That is why ASUS proposed an unusual solution – to use unused lines using other devices, like SSD. This is how an unusual version of the Dual GeForce RTX 4060 Ti came out with a connector for an M.2 drive.
Another reason for such a non-standard solution is the issue of cooling. Thanks to the air flows from the video card cooler that go directly to the SSD, its temperature drops by 10 degrees compared to normal. This is not particularly important if the M.2 slot is located above the video card, but if below it can be critical. In addition, keeping in mind AMD’s Radeon Pro SSG Vega, ASUS has made accessing the SSD very convenient – no need to disassemble half the card.
It’s too early to talk about the price in Russia. A model with an SSD slot appeared in European retailers at a provisional price of 559€. For comparison, the regular Dual RTX 4060 Ti 8 GB costs 470 € – the difference is significant.
