We finally managed to figure out what new feature differentiates upcoming Intel Z97 and H97 chipsets from the current 87-series. The really new thing is a PCIe M2. storage support that promises 67-percent faster performance than with SATA Gen 3.

In an ideal world this should result in same speed that you should be getting with SATA Express. By enabling this technology Intel is targeting high end gamers and people who care about data productivity. We expect that this feature will find its way to B97 chipsets, the business version of the 97-series chipset whenever Intel releases that one. PCIe storage is supported by Intel Rapid storage technology.

Both the Z97 and H97 come with 1x2 PCIe M.2 Storage Support while the rest of the chipset looks pretty much alike the Z87 and H87 and include three way graphics support, 14 USB ports from which 6 can be USB 3.0 and RAID 0/1/5/10, six SATA 6 Gb/s and a few other tricks.

We can only guess that new boards based on Z97 will definitely be prettier than the ones with Z87, you somehow have to sell a new product that very similar to the old one.