Intel Arc B580 GPU with two M.2 slots smiles for the camera — Maxsun GPU offers storage expansion with two PCIe 4.0 SSDs

Maxsun teased a special variant of the iCraft Arc B580 12G graphics card with two M.2 slots earlier this month. However, the company didn’t describe the card in detail or show its internals. A member of the Bilibili community filled this gap by posting images of the board without its cooling system. The card has two M.2 slots for installing a couple of PCIe 4.0 x4 drives and a capable power supply.

Although the exact model of the Maxsun graphics card is unknown, its design is based on the recently announced iCraft Arc B580 12G. Both utilize the identical PCB. The current model already has empty traces for the two M.2 slots at the end of the PCB, so Maxsun just soldered on the M.2 slots in the special variant.

Although the idea of adding an M.2 slot to a graphics card is not new, without any doubt, the M.2 slots are the main selling point of Maxsun’s iCraft Arc B580 12G graphics card. The slots are located on the backside of the card, so the drives will have to be inserted into the slot and then attached to the backplate of the cooling system with a screw. It seems that you don’t need to take off the cooler to install the M.2 SSDs. 

The arrangement is functional and results in a relatively rigid structure, but it is certainly an unorthodox way to secure SSDs in their slots. Typically, SSDs are attached to the board they’re installed into. Without its cooling system, the card resembles a fish with a long tail.

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As the name suggests, Maxsun’s upcoming iCraft Arc B580 graphics card carries the Intel Arc B580 graphics processor (with 2,560 stream processors) and 12GB of GDDR6 memory. As Intel’s recommended total board power for its Arc B580 product is 190W, the card has two eight-pin auxiliary PCIe power connectors, which can theoretically deliver up to 300W of power to the board.

The 300W capacity might be overkill for the GPU itself (which has a moderate six-phase voltage regulating module), but considering that two high-end M.2-2280/22110 SSDs can consume significant power, providing an excess power margin ensures both the GPU and the drives receive sufficient power.

As the Maxsun iCraft Arc B580 12G is an inexpensive graphics card, it is unsurprising that it does not carry a PCIe switch, which helps reduce cost. However, this means that the motherboard/CPU must perform PCIe bifurcation, so potential buyers must ensure that their platform fully supports PCIe x8/x4/x4 bifurcation.