Intel CEO abruptly trashed Royal Core project in early 2024 as leak details canned Beast Lake Next architecture

We reported in early August that the Intel Beast Lake CPU architecture has been canceled. The significance of this alleged development is that Beast Lake was supposed to be the first full implementation of Jim Keller’s fabled Royal Core project. The rumor which came to us courtesy of Moore’s Law Is Dead (MLID) further alleged that Intel is no longer developing a single CPU architecture which implements the entire breadth of Royal Core technologies. Rather, the company is reportedly breaking down the project to use its individual technologies in future architectures.

MLID has now revealed some more details regarding the canceled Royal Core roadmap including the hardware specifications of the Beast Lake and Beast Lake Next architectures.

Doomed Royal Core CPU roadmap and Nova Lake

Before Intel pulled the plug on Royal Core, the company seemingly had planned to release Arrow Lake as a “bridge architecture” to Royal Core. It was for this reason that Arrow Lake doesn’t feature any Hyperthreading. Per MLID, HT was already on its way out, so Intel chose to extract every bit of single-threading performance by “simplifying the core design”.

While we can’t be certain of Intel’s vision for Arrow Lake, the architecture is launching soon with seemingly no HT.

Moving on, Nova Lake was “Royal Core 1.0”. The architecture aimed to follow Arrow Lake in 2026 without any HT. Instead, Intel was reportedly looking to outfit the Nova Lake CPUs with “Rentable Units”, resulting in “massive gains in 1T performance. While Nova Lake is still expected to debut in 2026-27, we are not sure what Royal Core technologies will make their way into the architecture.

Finally, after Nova Lake, Intel was allegedly moving to Beast Lake in 2027 and Beast Lake Next in 2028.

Intel Beast Lake and Beast Lake Next

Intel Beast Lake reportedly was supposed to launch in 2027 with up to 12 P-cores and 16 E-cores for a total of 28 cores. MLID claims that Intel also hoped to outfit Beast Lake CPUs with Rentable Units (RU) that could produce two Threads per module.

According to MLID’s description of Rentable Units, each RU module could act as both a single big core and be split into smaller cores when needed. So, with two threads per RU module, the big P-cores in Beast Lake could be split into two smaller cores each when needed.

More interestingly, MLID suggests that Intel also had a “Royal Core 2.0” architecture planned in the form of Intel Beast Lake Next.

Intel Beast Lake Next was reportedly supposed to be the “full realization of Jim Keller’s vision”. The architecture was to only offer up to 6 P-cores in the flagship CPU tile. These cores were to feature four Threads per Rentable Unit. So, every core could be split into up to four individual smaller units.

This “4 Threads per RU” would have allowed a 6 P-core Beast Lake Next CPU tile to morph into a 4+8 or 2+16 affair. Interestingly, the description is quite similar to what RedGamingTech revealed back in early 2023 where the leaker reported that the Royal Core project could do away with individual P and E cores in favor of tiles. These tiles were said to have the ability to operate in both “Cove” and “Mont” modes to simulate P and E cores respectively.

Finally, MLID alleges that the “non-split” P-cores of Beast Lake Next could have had “over double the IPC of Raptor Lake”.

Assuming for a second that MLID’s information regarding Royal Core is accurate, it raises a serious question: Why on earth would Intel cancel such a promising project? The answer, as far as MLID is concerned, is quite disappointing.

Pat Gelsinger reportedly doesn’t believe in performance cores

The source that gave MLID all the above information also told the leaker that the Royal Core project was progressing nicely and hitting milestones before Intel CEO Pat Gelsinger suddenly canceled the project in early 2024.

So, the reason Beast Lake and Beast Lake Next are allegedly canned is not because the Royal Core project was having development troubles. But because, Intel’s CEO doesn’t think that the company needs high-performance cores when, per MLID’s source, CPU cores are only going to be used to connect GPUs. Essentially, Pat Gelsinger is betting on AI/server chips and not on high-performance cores for desktop clients.

It remains to be seen how beneficial this alleged move proves for Intel as not much has worked for Team Blue lately.

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