ASUS has a GeForce RTX 4060 Ti Card with an M.2 SSD Slot

[TheLostSwede]

Does Asus themselves even have a consumer board that does bifurcation?

I believe all AM4 and AM5 boards support it, as AMD doesn't limit it like Intel.

 

[Chaitanya]

I believe all AM4 and AM5 boards support it, as AMD doesn't limit it like Intel.

Even on Intel platforms its not gimped by Intel but its motherboard makers who are limiting it.

 

[TheLostSwede]

Even on Intel platforms its not gimped by Intel but its motherboard makers who are limiting it.

Please explain why they would be doing that? Even Intel W680 boards from the likes of Supermicro apparently lacks bifurcation support, a company that I don't think would limit things like that for its customers.

 

[Dr. Dro]

Does Asus themselves even have a consumer board that does bifurcation?

Their upper range socket AM4 boards support it, I recall my old B550-E having bifurcation settings in the BIOS

 

[trsttte]

Besides helping to make use of the full cpu lane counts, this can be a nice solution to the ridiculous heatsinks gen5 m.2 ssds are coming with (though some one spending that much on the ssd probably also has a better gpu that "uses" the full lanes)

So I stand corrected. ASUS are retards as usual. As the other 4 lines are simply wasted.

To be fair this is still unreleased and a new concept so cut them some slack

Though this is the same company that put a chipset on a daughter board only connected to an m.2 just so they could make an x670 itx board so yean...

 

[Ferrum Master]

Please explain why they would be doing that? Even Intel W680 boards from the likes of Supermicro apparently lacks bifurcation support, a company that I don't think would limit things like that for its customers.

Well there's a mish mash. My Z590I VISION D does have bios options for it... IMHO there had to add some additional switch HW to have it working, basically fully route the RSV pins also.

To be fair this is still unreleased and a new concept so cut them some slack

For what? For their shitty support, half baked overpriced products? I have ASUS products most of them had some sort of issues. This card at it's core concept is stupid just because of the fact it uses weird 12 lane config. It is always 8+4+4. Why bother doing some cutouts special cooling etc rubbish that actually ain't needed, but leave out precious 4x lanes.

 

[Kapone33]

The vast majority of their boards does with AM5 at least.
See here

[Motherboard] Compatibility of PCIE bifurcation between Hyper M.2 series Cards and Add-On Graphic Cards | Official Support | ASUS Global

I'm a bit unsure if x4+x4+x4+x4 means that GPU can only do x4 or if x4+x4 still allows for x8 or that it really must be x8+x8 or x8+x4+x4.
If it's the former many support it, if it's not, it's a lot harder to find a cheap(er) board.

I think it's a bit of a pointless product however. Pricing must be seriously higher which kind of defeats the purpose of the entire product.
If they're going to sell it it's probably going to be OEM only.

Even on AM4 it was the same. If you have a high end MB this might work but this is aimed directly at Z690 and Z790 boards that don't have enough lanes to have a x8 M2 card in a 2nd x16 slot. This solves that if you have bit but some are dumb and only do x4x4x4x4 so your GPU might be running at x4 unless there is a controller on the board.

 

[Count von Schwalbe]

I believe all AM4 and AM5 boards support it, as AMD doesn't limit it like Intel.

My B550 didn't have it in M.2_0, but all of my Intel boards did (including laptops) but that is an edge case.

 

[Kapone33]

My B550 didn't have it in M.2_0, but all of my Intel boards did (including laptops) but that is an edge case.

Which B550 board did you have? This is for the PCIe slot connected to the CPU.

 

[InVasMani]

It's only one slot, it's a hole in the PCB so it can touch the heatsink.


Well, that's what the software is reporting...


The Silicon Motion one? Hardly a GPU though, but I guess there's no technical limitation in terms of putting something a bit more powerful on an M.2 card, just space and thermal restraints, as well as the narrow bus width.

I presume you've seen the are already M.2 ML/AI accelerators, but they're not GPU based.

No I hadn't noticed that there were M.2 ML/AI accelerators, but it seems seems a obvious application of some niche way of utilizing the lane bus width to repurpose it. I've seen a 10G NIC on a M.2 though which is cool I imagine someone might have a TB4 based M.2 by now or is cooking up that idea now based on newer generations of M.2 and bandwidth. The Gen 5 x4 slots on newer boards would probably be most suitable for a GPU and a cooler option for it. I suppose Gen 4 x4 would also work fine in terms of bandwidth depending on the type of GPU in question. Really a Gen 5 x4 would be overkill today for the type of cooler you'd generally be able to pair with it short of like a M.2 AIO water block.

Next handful of generations are going to be amazing for miniaturization and thermals limitations for stuff like this. The amount of progress we're seeing is great. I think ITX boards could stand to load up the rear I/O with additional TB4 ports why not put 4 on the rear instead of 2 better I/O on the rear, but no need for all the added size of physical PCIE slots that don't work within the limits of the form factor.

 

[nomdeplume]

It's interresting yes because than x8 cards could have 2xM.2. slots on the back to make it a full x16 card to not block airflow underneath or for smaller motherboards like micro-atx or itx boards you can still have extra m.2. storage.

It's a novelty. Would be interesting if the x8 card had dual channel memory slots for GDDR.

 

[Kapone33]

It's a novelty. Would be interesting if the x8 card had dual channel memory slots for GDDR.

EXpandable VRAM. It's been done before too

 

[ALMorgan]

Hmmm...
I would have seen better the possibility of upgrading the GRAM of the graphics card instead of an additional SSD, but I think it is a complex option from a technical point of view.

Best ALMorgan

 

[AnarchoPrimitiv]

Seems like every motherboard these days comes with 4 or even 5 m.2 slots, and even mITX boards come with two or three, so I'm not sure what the application would be where a customer says, "Yes, I need this specific GPU because I specifically need and additional m.2 slot"

While mounted on a major heat-generating component, and with the chips' airflow constricted? I call bs...

The article specifically says that cooling wasn't an issue

 

[Count von Schwalbe]

Which B550 board did you have? This is for the PCIe slot connected to the CPU.

AsRock B550 PG4. It was an unusual case as I was using an Intel SSD with dual x2 interfaces (Optane/NAND)

 

[trsttte]

Even on AM4 it was the same. If you have a high end MB this might work

Not really, even my old and cheap msi b450 had the option for 8x 4x 4x or 4x4x4x4x without even having the slots for it. It's more common than people are making it out to be

Yes, I need this specific GPU because I specifically need and additional m.2 slot

It's more of a want vs need and I could see some sense to it now that m.2's are getting really dirt cheap. Maybe this could become an alternative to have so many m.2 slots on the boards and we get pcie slots back but i'm not getting any hopes up lol

 

[iO]

Not really, even my old and cheap msi b450 had the option for 8x 4x 4x or 4x4x4x4x without even having the slots for it. It's more common than people are making it out to be

AFAIK MSI removed bifurcation support on most boards when they added ReBAR support. At least on my B450I and the tomahawk.

 

[freeagent]

This board has bifurcation. I don't remember if my -F does.

 

[eidairaman1]

This board has bifurcation. I don't remember if my -F does.

If I ran any nvme it would be on a daughterboard with a heatsink and fan like a gpu if not water cooled, otherwise I will stick to SATA...

 

[Kapone33]

If I ran any nvme it would be on a daughterboard with a heatsink and fan like a gpu if not water cooled, otherwise I will stick to SATA...

You got that right. It is what I lament about the WD AN 1500. Then I got one of these when it was cheaper than the non Waterblock SSD. Corsair MP600 Pro XT. What I am going to use it for will be a PCIe 5.0 drive whenever I decide to get one.

 

[freeagent]

If I ran any nvme it would be on a daughterboard with a heatsink and fan like a gpu if not water cooled, otherwise I will stick to SATA...

My board came with one of these:

HYPER M.2 X16 GEN 4 CARD｜Motherboards｜ASUS Canada

 

[Kapone33]

My board came with one of these:

HYPER M.2 X16 GEN 4 CARD｜Motherboards｜ASUS Canada

Of course you got the Killer B550 XE!!!!!

 

[Darmok N Jalad]

The 2013 Mac Pro did something similar, as much as one can say the proprietary cards are similar. One of the 2 FirePros had the slot for the SSD card. I think everything ran through a bridge chip, since there were already 2 GPUs involved in every MP. I could see something like this being really nice for ITX form factor systems, where space is always at a premium.

 

[JoeTheDestroyer]

Well there's a mish mash. My Z590I VISION D does have bios options for it... IMHO there had to add some additional switch HW to have it working, basically fully route the RSV pins also.

For motherboards, it's entirely a software thing.

The host (i.e. chipset) has to support it, to grok what's being done w/ the different lanes. But given the preponderance of motherboards that have things like switchable slots (e.g., x16/x0 vs. x8/x8, which is bifurcation), I feel safe concluding that most if not all modern chipsets support it.

The card itself (e.g., this asus one, or m.2 breakout boards) does require some extra hardware, specifically a clock redriver. But that's small and relatively cheap.

The only thing motherboards need to do is have their bios turn the feature on and configure it properly. So, as I said, all software.

 

[jaszy]

I don't see where m.2 is lacking on modern boards.. My low-mid end Z690 literally has 4 slots... 3 of them being Gen4.

Regardless, it's cool that this can make use of the extra bandwidth via slot.