Asus Dual GeForce RTX 4060 Ti Hits Retailers With SSD Slot, Premium Pricing
Some outlets are charging nearly 20% more for this M.2 SSD expansion slot model.
The Asus Dual GeForce RTX 4060 Ti OC Edition 8GB with M.2 SSD has arrived at a number of retailers in Europe. Twitter PC hardware sleuth momomo_us spotted these quirky graphics card with a PCIe M.2 SSD slot at a trio of outlets in Northern Europe. We checked the outlets, which also all stocked the same Asus Dual GeForce RTX 4060 OC 8GB cards without the SSD expansion slot, and found cost premiums ranging from 7 to 19 percent for the onboard storage option.
Retailer |
Standard OC edition |
SSD edition | Price Increase |
---|---|---|---|
Inet SE |
5790 kr |
6290 kr |
9% |
Multitronic FI |
€470 |
€560 |
19% |
Webhallen SE |
5790 kr |
6190 kr |
7% |
The prices in the table above are not likely to bear much relation to retail prices in the US, but the mark-ups sought by the retailers could be echoed in the States; The $399 US consumers expect to pay for an Asus Dual GeForce RTX 4060 Ti OC Edition 8GB at places like Newegg, might see some inflation.
If US retailers follow the lead of those in Northern Europe, we could see them try and pump up the prices from $399 to $427 (7% increase) or even $475 (19% increase). Hopefully, competition among US outlets will be strong enough to avoid such premiums. However, retailers may be paying a little more to Asus for these added M.2 SSD slot cards.
We first saw evidence of the Asus Dual GeForce RTX 4060 Ti OC Edition 8GB with M.2 SSD being prepared in the background back in July, when Asus demonstrated a prototype at a Chinese tech event.
There isn’t a lot to say about this RTX 4060 Ti 8GB on the GPU side of things, as we have seen and reviewed this SKU and it has charted among our best graphics cards of 2023.
The idea for adding storage onboard probably came from the fact that many people will be plugging these graphics cards into a PCIe 16x slot, but the GPU portion only uses eight PCIe lanes. In the prototype, we saw the extra bandwidth afforded dual M.2-2280 PCIe 4.0 x4 slots. However, the blurb accompanying the release version of the Asus Dual GeForce RTX 4060 Ti OC Edition 8GB with M.2 SSD hints that there is “a” singular slot for extra storage. Another part of the Asus product text which was shared by momomo_us suggests that the M.2 slot is “capable of PCIe 5.0 speeds.”
Since July, when we warned about possible price hikes affecting this model, Asus has integrated a snap/slide-on cover for the M.2 drive, which is housed on the backplate area. This looks quite convenient for switching M.2 22-upto-80 drives. Moreover, Asus has built-in a Q-Latch so you don’t need to fiddle with screws when installing or switching the SSD.
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Mark Tyson is a news editor at Tom's Hardware. He enjoys covering the full breadth of PC tech; from business and semiconductor design to products approaching the edge of reason.
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edzieba In the prototype, we saw the extra bandwidth afforded dual M.2-2280 PCIe 4.0 x4 slots. However, the blurb accompanying the release version of the Asus Dual GeForce RTX 4060 Ti OC Edition 8GB with M.2 SSD hints that there is “a” singular slot for extra storage.
Probably for compatibility reasons. 'Basic' bifurcation from x16 to x8/x8 is now pretty widespread across both vendors (as recently as the Z1xx series that was a feature that may only be seen with certain vendors, certain SKUs, and sometimes only with specific BIOS versions). However, 'double bifurcation' of x16 to x8/x4/x4 is not as widely available. x8/x8 can drop down to x8/x4 with no further configuration, so an x8 GPU & x4 drive slot has the lowest chance of encountering compatibility issues. -
thestryker
This is absolutely the reason as Intel client platforms do not support x4 bifurcation so if they wanted 2 they'd have had to put a PCIe switch on the board. Though in all fairness that would have justified the increased cost.edzieba said:Probably for compatibility reasons. 'Basic' bifurcation from x16 to x8/x8 is now pretty widespread across both vendors (as recently as the Z1xx series that was a feature that may only be seen with certain vendors, certain SKUs, and sometimes only with specific BIOS versions). However, 'double bifurcation' of x16 to x8/x4/x4 is not as widely available. x8/x8 can drop down to x8/x4 with no further configuration, so an x8 GPU & x4 drive slot has the lowest chance of encountering compatibility issues. -
randyh121 Interesting idea, but not sure on the field if it would actually get any performance gains by doing this.Reply -
froggx
Seems like more of a "here you go, an extra slot for an M.2 PCIe 5.0 x4 SSD" kind of thing than a performance feature. PCIe 5.0 SSDs don't seem to offer much advantage in most applications yet but future proofing is never a bad idea. Most motherboards I've seen either only have a single M.2 PCIe 5.0 slot or only support PCIe 5.0 over the x16 slot that tends to be taken by the GPU.randyh121 said:Interesting idea, but not sure on the field if it would actually get any performance gains by doing this.
Personally, I would love to have another M.2 slot regardless of PCIe spec. I've got a couple 1 TB PCIe 3.0 SSDs I'd like to use for additional game storage since they trounce my SATA disk, but I can't cause all my M.2 slots are already occupied. -
Co BIY A real innovation and one many may actually take advantage of.Reply
Who doesn't have a few M.2 SSDs laying around that you think should be in use rather than reminding you of the extremely rapid depreciation and deprecation of "Top of the Line" hardware. -
Unolocogringo Mine already runs quite warm from the GPU blowing hot air on it. A heat sink does not help.Reply
Attaching it to the GPU seems like a bad Idea for cooling purposes. -
coromonadalix Another sale gimmick ??? why not creating an video card with ddr 5 ddr 6 sticks lollReply -
ManDaddio A lot of people like to delve into the negative immediately when innovative things are revealed.Reply
This may seem like something sillier that people don't need but in fact it may be just what the doctor ordered for people who have no m.2 slots on their motherboard or only have one or two from older motherboards.
Everybody's crying about faster storage. Here's a way to either get some or add some. And at the same time you can upgrade your video card.
Despite what people say 8 GB is going to be fine for a while still for 1080p gaming. And some people just use the GPU for content creation or other business stuff where they might need extra storage.
It would be interesting to be able to test this against the m.2 drives that are attached to the motherboard directly. Is this faster or is there way more latency? -
hotaru251
there wouldnt be any gains.randyh121 said:but not sure on the field if it would actually get any performance gains by doing this.
m.2 speeds are very fast but compared to GDDR6X? massively slower.
gpu memory is extremely fast. system ram is worse (why you feel the hit to performance once u have to use it) & storage (even fastest around) is slower than that.
its literally just giving you more m.2 storage to make use of bandwidth you arent using. -
t3t4 While I have no real interest in a 4060 anything from anyone, I do think the addition of a spare M.2 is a good idea, if properly located. Price gouging aside, this could be very useful to some folks.Reply