Intel's upcoming "Nova Lake" desktop platform is drawing nearer, and today we have some intriguing details thanks to the Chinese electronics and motherboard maker Decenta. In leaked information about the motherboard SKU "M26-NVLS-ATX09," we see that it uses Intel's new LGA1954 socket and is listed with Q970 and B960 chipset options. The most notable difference between the two chipsets seems to be their expansion capabilities. Previously leaked specifications suggest that the Q970 provides a total of 44 PCIe lanes, including eight PCIe 5.0 lanes supplied by the chipset. In contrast, the B960 reportedly offers 34 lanes, with no additional PCIe 5.0 lanes from the chipset itself.

Both chipsets feature PCIe 4.0 connectivity, although the Q970 offers 12 chipset lanes compared to the B960's 14. Decenta's ATX motherboard supports four DDR5-6400 memory modules, with dual-channel operation and a maximum capacity of 256 GB. Its expansion layout includes PCIe 5.0 slots, two M.2 storage connectors, and a legacy PCI slot for older industrial hardware. For wireless connectivity, we see that Decanta's platform supports expansion through an M.2 E-Key socket that supports Wi-Fi 7 and Bluetooth 6.x modules. VGA, HDMI, and DisplayPort outputs allow up to three displays to operate simultaneously.The published chipset specifications also suggest different target markets. The Q970 reportedly supports Intel vPro management features but does not allow memory overclocking, while the B960 supports memory overclocking but lacks vPro. These differences could make the Q970 more appealing for managed business systems and industrial deployments, with the B960 serving a different segment of the desktop market. Decenta also advertises 138 TOPS of combined theoretical AI computing performance across the CPU, NPU, and integrated GPU. However, these figures have not been verified and may point to a specific processor configuration.