Asus this week formally launched its ASUS Twin GeForce RTX 4060 Ti SSD OC Version 8 GB graphics card, an uncommon video card that additionally gives an M.2 SSD slot. First showcased earlier this 12 months, the cardboard is geared toward small type issue programs, giving system builders entry to a full-bandwidth M.2 slot for extra storage with out having to occupy a second PCIe slot.
Similar to different GeForce RTX 4060 Ti graphics playing cards, the Twin GeForce RTX 4060 Ti SSD is predicated on NVIDIA’s AD106 GPU with 4352 CUDA cores (that may function at as much as 2595 MHz). As AD106 solely has 8 PCIe lanes out of the gate, common RTX 4060 Ti playing cards don’t use the opposite 8 lanes provided by a PCIe x16 slot. Nonetheless for his or her particular SSD card, Asus is taking a distinct tack, utilizing PCIe bifurcation to straight wire up 4 of the remaining 8 lanes to an M.2 slot (no bridges or change chips required). The top end result being that the GPU will get its regular PCIe 4.0 x8 interface whereas additionally giving the M.2 slot a PCIe 5.0 x4 interface.
An M.2 2280 slot is positioned on the bottom of the cardboard and will be simply accessed by the consumer. The cooling system of the graphics card can contact the SSD utilizing a thermal pad, so the cooler of the Twin GeForce RTX 4060 Ti SSD can quiet down the drive to make sure its constant efficiency even below excessive masses.
In comparison with a prototype board that Asus demonstrated again in June, Asus has simplified the ultimate product. Particularly, whereas the prototype featured two M.2 slots – one among which required removing of the cooling system – the business product solely has one M.2 slot on the again that’s simple to entry.
Internally, using PCIe bifurcation does current some further issues. The host must help bifurcation of a single PCIe x16 hyperlink right down to x8 + x8, which just about all fashionable AMD and Intel platforms do (and certainly, that is how most of those programs drive a number of x16 slots). However there are the uncommon exceptions, significantly with entry-level platforms. And even then, bifurcation on the system stage is not one thing generally utilized in client {hardware}, which is to say it is not all the time well-tested. To that finish, Asus gives a listing of its personal motherboards which can be assured to help its Twin GeForce RTX 4060 Ti SSD graphics card.
In any other case, the Twin GeForce RTX 4060 Ti SSD OC Version 8GB is a reasonably typical RTX 4060 Ti card. Extra energy is provided by way of an 8-pin PCIe energy connector, and Asus gives the usual 3x DisplayPort 1.4a + 1x HDMI 2.1b video outputs. In the meantime, cooling for the two.5-slot extensive card is offered by a pair of axial followers.
At this level, Asus has not introduced a launch date or a counsel value for the cardboard. So it stays to be seen when it would develop into obtainable.
