90%
Highly Likely
Intel's upcoming Z970 motherboards for Nova Lake-S Desktop CPUs will replace both high-end Z890 and mainstream B860 options.
Intel Z970 Motherboards To Cover An Extensive Market With Both High-End & Mainstream Options For Nova Lake Builders
Intel's 900-series motherboards will have a wide range of options for PC builders. The flagship Z990 chipset will be the recommended choice for enthusiast Nova Lake Desktop CPUs, featuring a dual compute tile configuration, while the Z970 chipset will retain a primary focus on the high-end market.
Based on a new post by Jaykihn at X, it looks like the Z970 chipset may not just serve the high-end market but also the mainstream segment. It is said that Z970 motherboards will be able to replace most of the market covered by the B860 chipset. By "most of the market", Jaykihn is likely referring to some of the more premium B860 options. Now, by premium B860 options, I am referring to certain models that are priced between $200-$250, an upper range for Intel's "60" series chipsets.
It will be nice to see motherboards with Z970 chipsets in the $199-$249 US price range, as these boards will retain CPU overclocking capabilities, something that will be missing from the true budget-oriented B960 options. On paper, the Z970 and B960 chipsets have little to no differences in IO capabilities, and the CPU OC support is the primary difference. We will see differences in the designs, though, as board makers will roll out cost-effective designs through reduced M.2 slots, PCIe slots, lower VRAM capability, and fewer IO capabilities (USB/LAN/WIFI/Audio).
With that said, current B860 motherboards start at $110-$130 US and go all the way up to $249-$299. Z890 motherboards start at $150-$160 US, with enthusiast models priced above $500-$600 US, and certain ultra-enthusiast models such as MSI's GODLIKE & AORUS's Xtreme AI TOP retailing above $1000 US.
The two "Z" series offerings in Intel's 900-series lineup for Nova Lake CPUs will enable motherboard makers to offer two ultra-enthusiast motherboards instead of just one, allowing even more options to gamers and enthusiasts. Surely there will be a lot of interesting designs coming to the desktop CPU market soon, and we hope to get a glimpse of these at Computex 2026.
About the author: A Software Engineer by training and a PC enthusiast by passion, Hassan Mujtaba serves as Wccftech's Senior Editor for hardware section. With years of experience in the industry, he specializes in deep-dive technical analysis of next-generation CPU and GPU architectures, motherboards, and cooling solutions. His work involves not only breaking news on upcoming technologies but also extensive hands-on reviews and benchmarking.
Follow Wccftech on Google to get more of our news coverage in your feeds.
