A brand new Intel graphics card has been noticed working two M.2 SSDs from the identical PCB because the GPU. With the launch of the Intel Arc B580, the rise of accomplice playing cards is coming, and a card made by Chinese language producer MaxSun has been noticed with two M.2 SSD slots.
The Intel Arc B580 has carved out a distinct segment for itself not too long ago, providing a 12GB graphics card for $249, not like another GPU on this value vary. It’s not the perfect graphics card when it comes to body charges, but it surely gives so much to your cash. Bang per buck isn’t the one advantage of this Intel GPU utilizing the 8x PCIe 5.0 interface, although, as Maxsun has additionally proven one other trick you’ll be able to obtain on certainly one of these playing cards.
A teardown of this curious card turned up on the Chinese language social media web site, BiliBili, and posted by “JustBuy” on X (previously Twitter). Two SSDs are clearly seen protruding from the graphics card PCB.
The SSDs piggyback off the GPU’s PCIe lanes. Because the Intel Arc B580 solely makes use of eight PCIe 5.0 lanes, MaxSun can provide 16 lanes to the entire card if it makes use of a full connector. With one other eight lanes nonetheless open, the cardboard can then host a pair of 4x PCIe SSDs. The power to squeeze a lot {hardware} into one unit is doubtlessly helpful for one of the best mini gaming PC designs, as they will then home much more storage, enabling you to suit two of one of the best gaming SSD fashions with out having to search out house on the motherboard.
This gained’t be the primary time that SSDs have been tacked onto a GPU. In 2017, AMD fitted its Radeon Professional SSG with 2TB of storage, and Asus launched an Nvidia RTX 4060 Ti card with an M.2 slot on it final 12 months. The latter card used the identical idea of controlling an SSD with unused PCIe lanes.
There’s no launch date for the MaxSun B580 as of but, however the firm has mentioned that it’s engaged on it and can have extra data quickly.
The B580 is Intel’s first main win for avid gamers this 12 months after a couple of disasters on the gaming CPU circuit. Whereas its newest processors aren’t nice for avid gamers proper now, as we present in our current Core Extremely 7 265K evaluation, this new $249 graphics card seems to have sparked new life into the finances gaming market.
