Asus showed off the GeForce RTX 4060 Ti Dual video card concept with an integrated M.2 SSD slot. This is intended to keep unused PCIe lanes on the GPU.

GeForce RTX 4060 Ti Dual Card Featured in Bilibili video that showed Director general From Asus in China, Tony Yu. A cutout has been made in the back where the 2TB Samsung 980 Pro SSD sits. The GPU back plate should act as a heatsink for the storage device.

This allows unused PCIe lanes to be used. Many entry-level and mid-range models of GPUs, such as the Nvidia RTX 4060 series, use only eight PCIe lanes. This while being placed in a x16 slot. So eight lanes remain unused. M.2 SSDs use four lanes, so in theory there’s room for a maximum of two SSD slots on the card’s PCB. According to Asus, adding an SSD to a video card also has the advantage that replacing the drive in a PC should be easier.

However, this arrangement can lead to overheating. This is why the GPU’s PCB has been adapted in such a way that the video card’s cooler can also hit the SSD. According to Yu, this caused the temperature to drop by ten degrees Celsius. The video card also requires more power due to the addition of the SSD, although consumption should not exceed 10 watts, something the RTX 4060 should be able to handle with just one 8-pin connector. Asus’ own tests will show that the performance of an SSD attached to a GPU is comparable to that of the same SSD attached to a Gen4 motherboard.