ASUS GeForce RTX 4060 Ti Dual with M.2 Slot

[Sunlight91]

I think it's a great innovation for next-gen when GPUs move to PCIe5. Even high-end cards should be fine with PCIe5 x8.

 

[Selaya]

It's a sexy option on the lowest end card I would never buy. How about a 4090 or 4080 with that M.2 slot?

I'd probably store just my games on a 4TH SSD in that slot.

would be limited to x8 then regardless since x12 isn't possible (yet)
while theres little to be gained from those running 4.0x16 it still might be a doubtful proposition for manufacturers

 

[sLowEnd]

No one in their right mind should buy this. But Envision a future where storage speeds have advanced to the extent that they can seamlessly function as both VRAM and RAM.

There are probably some people looking to build an ITX system, who would appreciate the extra slot

 

[Jism]

No one in their right mind should buy this. But Envision a future where storage speeds have advanced to the extent that they can seamlessly function as both VRAM and RAM.

I could see a use case in having a shared computer. You just swap out the Graphics card which holds the OS on the GPU itself.

Other then that; having space for extra storage (think of budget boards) is always welcome.

It's just one of the neat engineering things company's like Asus brings. More should do that.

 

[W1zzard]

Then why do you note it as a con that it cuts into the power budget if it makes no impact on performance? It's not really a con if you don't notice a difference. Plus, NVMe SSDs don't use that much power compared to a GPU.

What I meant was that an SSD doesn't magically add more VRAM or boost performance in other ways.

Power budget will be a con for some enthusiasts and overclockers. It would have been easy to design the circuit differently, so SSD power gets ignored by the NVIDIA power limiter (just grab 12 V from before the shunts, not after them).

Yes, SSD power is very low, and it probably won't make a difference for most scenarios, but I still find it important to educate people about the fact, especially considering that all other reviewers missed it.

@W1zzard, dumb question and sorry if it was answered in your review and I missed it -- can the drive be used as a boot drive?

Yes you can boot from it, I've tested it. It's mentioned in the review

 

[izy]

Just curious , could this work on B450 motherboards? (like b450 tomahawk max etc.) , if it does how would it perform on a PCI-E 3.0 with the M.2 SSD enabled?
The only reason to buy this GPU, in my opinion, is if you are using a MB with only one M.2 slot (the extra cost would make sense here) and most of the newer boards have 2 already.

 

[Selaya]

does your board support bifurcation? if yes, then yes it'll work
if not, then no it won't

 

[izy]

does your board support bifurcation? if yes, then yes it'll work
if not, then no it won't

How can you know that? I know it can split lanes on multiple slots i dont know if it can split them on the GPU slot.
Is this it? (img from google )

 

[Selaya]

PCI_E1 Lanes Configuration

is what you're looking for. the x8x8 option (you've got x4x4x4x4 currently selected)
do keep in mind that b450 is terminal pcie3.0. it might bottleneck your gpu on x8.

 

[izy]

is what you're looking for. the x8x8 option (you've got x4x4x4x4 currently selected)
do keep in mind that b450 is terminal pcie3.0. it might bottleneck your gpu on x8.

I know , that was the reason of my first question. The picture is from google , my MB is set to x16 ofc
Edit: Would be nice if someone could MOD the B450 BIOS to enable PCIE 4.0 , as far as i remember they had PCIE 4.0 enabled at some point (i think it was before releasing newer BIOS with ZEN 3 support), it would make some sense to get this GPU in this situation.

 

[Panther_Seraphin]

I know , that was the reason of my first question. The picture is from google , my MB is set to x16 ofc
Edit: Would be nice if someone could MOD the B450 BIOS to enable PCIE 4.0 , as far as i remember they had PCIE 4.0 enabled at some point (i think it was before releasing newer BIOS with ZEN 3 support), it would make some sense to get this GPU in this situation.

You are looking most likely at single digit loss between PCIE 3 and PCIE 4 even with higher end cards so an 8x "bottleneck" wouldnt really be anyting until you hit 4090s/7900xtx

 

[Aquinus]

What I meant was that an SSD doesn't magically add more VRAM or boost performance in other ways.

Power budget will be a con for some enthusiasts and overclockers. It would have been easy to design the circuit differently, so SSD power gets ignored by the NVIDIA power limiter (just grab 12 V from before the shunts, not after them).

Yes, SSD power is very low, and it probably won't make a difference for most scenarios, but I still find it important to educate people about the fact, especially considering that all other reviewers missed it.

Educating is one thing, just listing it as a con is another. The point is well taken, but it's probably not worth mentioning. I guess my point is that I don't really see a con here other than putting a SSD near a heat generating component or not giving the GPU all 16 lanes. I suspect that populating those two M.2s probably has zero impact on overclocking.

Quick question. Was this GPU marketed as the NVMe drives improving performance of your GPU? If not, then you're making some assumptions that may not be true.

Edit: Would you be open to doing an overclocking test with NVMe cards populated to confirm that it could negatively impact performance? Right now it seems like an assumption.

 

[tommo1982]

I could see a use case in having a shared computer. You just swap out the Graphics card which holds the OS on the GPU itself.

Other then that; having space for extra storage (think of budget boards) is always welcome.

It's just one of the neat engineering things company's like Asus brings. More should do that.

SSD on a GPU is not new. AMD did that with their Radeon Pro SSG. I guess games are not constrained as much by storage to GPU transfers.

 

[bug]

RTX 4060 Ti is generally a bit pricey

Good one

 

[pexxie]

I'm really looking forward to seeing these BIOS files added to the VGA BIOS collection. That 30%-1000rpm mapping would be exquisite. The lowest I can get mine to is ~1150rpm, using user-submitted BIOSes.

 

[Avro Arrow]

"NVIDIA's GeForce RTX 4060 Ti has been on the market since early summer and has established itself at the go-to choice for GeForce gamers in the midrange segment."

Say what? Is this the same RTX 4060 Ti that was chided for being the worst value card of its generation?

 

[umdterps71]

I keep imagining someone selling their GPU and forgetting the m.2 is in there.

 

[AusWolf]

• SSD power usage eats into GPU power budget

This product almost looked like a truly innovative idea (who wouldn't want to use some unused lanes for an extra m.2), until this point.

 

[Panther_Seraphin]

This product almost looked like a truly innovative idea (who wouldn't want to use some unused lanes for an extra m.2), until this point.

TBH its a 4060ti is it majorly power limited? Also is the 5/10 watts an SSD takes going to make/break it?

 

[AusWolf]

TBH its a 4060ti is it majorly power limited? Also is the 5/10 watts an SSD takes going to make/break it?

It's more about the principle. Why does the SSD have to eat into the GPU's power limit?

 

[InVasMani]

Waiting for a 3 slot m.2 gpu card

Honestly that would be great on more lower end discrete GPU's stuff like the entry level ARC GPU's would be perfect candidates for that type of scenario since it's not really saturating the full PCIE 5.0 bandwidth as much as like a high end GPU like RTX 4090 would be on the opposite end of the spectrum.

I believe my Asus Z790-H Strix MB with beta bios 1703 already had a bios option to support this GPU. I'll take a look for it later, but pretty sure I saw the option for it earlier.

 

[syrup]

Looks interesting to me as an ITX prisoner, although only my ASUS board supports bifurcation while the MSI doesn't. On the other hand, the MSI already has three M.2 slots vs two on the ASUS.

Hopefully it's not just a one off product - would get more interesting with wider bifurcation support and with these M.2 sockets as a standard feature on a broad range of cards rather than this specific, rather fat 4060 Ti, as it's hard to justify if it isn't what you really wanted GPU-wise.

 

[InVasMani]

Yeah that looks really great for ITX and micro ATX given more limited space. I think eventually smaller dimension 22 mm x 30 mm might end up being preferrable to insert even on ATX boards simply due to the smaller size foot print provided performance is still sufficient enough and the end user has a heavier leaning towards storage performance rather than capacity it could start to make sense inserting more of the miniturized M.2's. I imagine about 8 if not more of those could be reasonably inserted on a handful of modern MB's. Really probably closer to like 12. That would be pretty cool with miniaturized M.2 form factor CXL. They could develop a new standard around that and installing them in channel pairs.

 

[cst1992]

First, the ASUS Z790 Dark Hero, released just weeks ago. ... With this motherboard you can not use the SSD on the RTX 4060 Ti.

Ouch. If I didn't know that and I had this board, I'd be seriously bummed, not to mention pissed.

I keep imagining someone selling their GPU and forgetting the m.2 is in there.

Reboot and Select proper Boot device
or Insert Boot Media in selected Boot device and press a key_

"Hmm, that's weird... oh crap"

 

[bug]

"NVIDIA's GeForce RTX 4060 Ti has been on the market since early summer and has established itself at the go-to choice for GeForce gamers in the midrange segment."

Say what? Is this the same RTX 4060 Ti that was chided for being the worst value card of its generation?

It was toppled from that position by the 4060Ti 16GB... But if you want to pick a bad card from the current lineup, you can just take your pick,