The Intel 900 series chipset lineup has been leaked, showing five distinct tiers covering the needs of mid- to high-end motherboards, each supporting the LGA-1954 platform powering next-gen Nova Lake-S processors productised as Core Ultra 400 Series. The series introduces a new flagship option called Z990, offering more PCIe lanes via the chipset as well as a faster Gen 5 DMI link to the CPU.
Shared by @jaykihn0 on X, the lineup includes the Z990, Z970, B960, W980, and Q970. As you may have noticed, there is no H-series – such as the H810 chipset – this time around, with the B960 seemingly covering the lowest segment. While budget options could be introduced later down the line; at the moment, there are no H-series chipsets planned, according to @jaykihn0.
Intel’s new naming scheme may be confusing to some users as it parts ways with the usual single chipset per tier. For example, the 700 series offered the Z790, B760, H770, and W790 chipsets, while the 800 series offered the Z890, B860, H810, Q870, and W880. The company seems to have taken notes from AMD’s X870E and X870 nomenclatures by offering more options on the high-end for those who want most of the overclocking/PCIe capabilities without unnecessary extras.
In the new segmentation, the Z990 sits at the top, boasting significantly more I/O capabilities, followed by the Z970, which keeps multiplier-unlocked CPU overclocking (OC), then comes the mainstream B960, replacing the B860. For professionals, Intel is launching the W980 chipset targeting workstations and likely Nova Lake-based Xeon processors, with the Q970 covering commercial desktops’ needs.
Going into details, the premium Z990 chipset will feature vastly improved connectivity, including a total of 48 PCIe lanes – 12 of which at Gen 5 speed – two USB 4/Thunderbolt 4, eight SATA 3 ports, and up to five USB 3.2 20Gb/s. True to its flagship nature, the Z990 will also allow complete hardware tuning, from memory OC to BCLK OC and even a so-called AI OC – probably a fancy name for multiplier OC.
Funnily enough, the BCLK OC, which allows the overclocking of non-K CPUs, will be available on motherboards that are unlikely to be paired with budget CPUs. This improved connectivity is possible thanks to the larger Gen 5 x4 DMI link, which acts as the data highway between the CPU and chipset.
Moving to the Z970 we find 34 PCIe lanes – none at Gen 5 speed, mind you – a single USB 4/Thunderbolt 4, four SATA 3 ports, and up to two USB 3.2 20Gb/s. While this chipset retains memory OC and AI OC, it loses the BCLK OC. Interestingly, the Z970 and B960 seem to share a similar design, mainly differing in the latter’s lack of AI OC support.
On the business side, the W980 is pretty much a carbon copy of the consumer-oriented Z990, mainly swapping some unneeded overclocking capabilities for the more important vPro manageability, PCIe RAID, and ECC memory support. The Q970 is also fairly similar, mainly dropping four PCIe 5 lanes and ECC support. The latter targets businesses that care about vPro remote manageability above all.
These chipsets will no doubt debut alongside next-gen Intel Nova Lake-S processors later this year, which are said to bring a noticeable increase in CPU core counts by reaching 52. While not revolutionary by themselves, the combination with Core Ultra 400 CPUs should allow the use of faster RAM, pushing performance higher than ever.
