Also from China, Asus unveils a rather unusual RTX 4060 Ti. The card in question features an M.2 slot on its printed circuit board. These enable the mounting of two PCIe 4.0 x4 SSDs. A solution that offers many advantages!
RTX 4060 Ti: an M.2 slot on a graphics card!
As we can see (via @Harukaze5719), the Asus card does indeed feature an M.2 slot for an SSD in this format. The design is ingenious, exploiting the remaining PCIe lines on the card’s slot. Remember that the NVIDIA 60 series uses a PCIe x8 interface. So, in theory, there’s enough bandwidth for two PCIe 4.0 x4 SSDs.
The presence of slots on the graphics card makes it possible to mount this type of storage on motherboards that are under-equipped. What’s more, the SSD is cooled by the graphics card heatsink. A CrystalDiskMark capture highlights the 42°C temperature of the SSD while the graphics card is under stress on Furmark.
An original solution, but one that clearly makes sense in our opinion. Now, will Asus China launch its card or will it remain a prototype? A mystery!
