The concept of an external graphics card is from a very niche market, because it allows you to improve a PC without opening it and if it has the right connector. Suitable for laptops, but for desktops it is more for people with small towers. Asus wanted to give importance to the market with its new RTX 4060 Ti model, with a connector to which an RTX 4090 in eGPU format can be connected, in addition to having a connector for the SSD.
What is the reason for all this? Well, since the RTX 4060 Ti is a mid-range card, it will eventually allow you to use a more powerful graphics card in external format. And the SSD? Being able to use the graphics card's active fans to dissipate heat, in addition to taking advantage of PCie lanes.
An SSD mounted on a graphics card? Asus presents this strange RTX 4060 Ti model
Asus has taken advantage of the fact that the RTX 4060 Ti GPU makes limited use of the PCIe interface and has internally rewired the PCIe layout to integrate an M.2 2280 PCIe 5.0 SSD slot directly on the GPU.
The slot is mounted to the back of the card's printed circuit board through a cutout in the backplate. Asus has demonstrated the new GPU with more than 12 GB/s transmission speed from the integrated SSD. Additionally, the integrated M.2 port can also host other devices to create new functionality, such as using an RTX 4090 as an eGPU.
The RTX 4060 Ti only uses eight of the 16 available PCIe lanes. The remaining eight lanes are physically present, but electrically deactivated, so they can take advantage of them to put the M.2 slot. An RTX 4060 Ti uses a PCIe 4.0 interface, but if the M.2 drive and motherboard support PCIe 5.0, the GPU's M.2 slot can operate at full PCIe 5.0 speeds.
Asus China Product Manager Tony Yu demonstrated the retail version of the Asus RTX 4060 Ti SSD via BiliBili using a SSD Samsung 980 Pro 4.0TB PCIe 2 and the Crucial T700 PCIe 5.0 SSD. Its use was also shown with an RTX 4090 connected via the M.2 slot of the RTX 4060 Ti using a Gen4x4 to M.2 adapter. Of this model, the RTX 4090 could only use four PCIe 4.0 lanes through the M.2 slot of the RTX 4060 Ti.