The two chipsets differ mainly in expansion. Previously leaked specifications suggest the Q970 provides 44 PCIe lanes in total, including eight PCIe 5.0 lanes from the chipset, while the B960 reportedly offers 34 lanes with no chipset-supplied PCIe 5.0 lanes. Both support PCIe 4.0, with the Q970 offering 12 chipset lanes against the B960's 14.

The split also points to different target markets. The Q970 reportedly supports Intel vPro management features but no memory overclocking, whereas the B960 allows memory overclocking but lacks vPro. That could make the Q970 the pick for managed business and industrial systems, with the B960 aimed elsewhere in the desktop market.

Decenta's board supports four DDR5-6400 modules in dual-channel mode up to 256 GB, plus PCIe 5.0 slots, two M.2 storage connectors and a legacy PCI slot for older industrial hardware. An M.2 E-Key socket allows Wi-Fi 7 and Bluetooth 6.x modules, and VGA, HDMI and DisplayPort outputs can drive three displays at once. The listing also advertises 138 TOPS of combined theoretical AI performance across CPU, NPU and integrated GPU, though that figure is unverified and may reflect one specific processor configuration.