GoKawiilA Redditor got his hands on a PCIe adapter that does the job of two different ones at the same time, converting a half-height GPU into full height while also adding M.2 slots for SSD storage expansion.
A common PCIe adapter you'll see out there is a riser meant to convert half-height cards, such as low-profile GPUs, into full-height cards. Even more popular than that is a PCIe to M.2 adapter that allows you to run more SSDs with an extra PCIe slot. What you've likely never seen before is a PCIe adapter that combines both of these features into one, being both an M.2 storage holder and a GPU riser, allowing you to maximize the functionality of your PC hardware.
A standard PCIe to M.2 adapter has a PCIe connector on one end and nothing else on the other. A standard riser will have a PCIe connector on one end that slots into the motherboard and a female connector on the other for the GPU. The adapter in the post above has both — it adds storage expansion via two M.2 slots while itself having a whole GPU slotted on the other side for the height conversion purposes.
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How is this possible? The answer is PCIe bifurcation. This PCIe adapter from RIITOP uses an x16 connector, which means it has enough lanes to be able to distribute them across multiple devices. In your motherboard's BIOS, you can select x8x4x4 as the bifurcated config for an x16 slot, which will split the 16 lanes three ways. The x8 will be reserved for the GPU (passed through the adapter), while both of the x4 lanes will be used by either SSD on the adapter.
Some modern graphics cards, such as OP's RTX 4060, only use a PCIe x8 connection, so part of your motherboard's x16 slot is going to waste anyway. Why not put the rest of the 8 lanes to good use? The Redditor ended up connecting a WD Green SSD and an Intel OEM drive, allowing them to circumvent the "RAMageddon," as they called it (though this device notably does not address any RAM issues). Even though the adapter costs just $27 on Amazon, you still need the SSDs to put in it.
(Image credit: Future)
In the comments, many people highlighted the complexity of this solution and the fact that PCIe bifurcation is not supported on every motherboard. Moreover, your board might not support the exact x8x4x4 config needed to make a setup like this work. This enthusiast was lucky as the adapter just worked out of the box without any tweaks. Asus actually makes some GPUs with SSD slots that work on similar principles.
The poster even went one step ahead and connected an M.2 to PCIe adapter in one of the already-adapted M.2 slots. In this, they plugged an RTX 3060 to offload the upscaling/frame generation inside Lossless Scaling, while their RTX 4060 does the base rendering. If you don't have another graphics card just randomly lying around, you can still be part of the PCIe-ception by adding another PCIe to M.2 adapter in the x8 slot of the RIITOP adapter to get quad M.2 support, like this person:
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