Intel will decommission its legendary Celeron and Pentium brands used for basic notebook CPUs. Instead, starting in 2023, they will be referred to as the rather humble "Intel Processor" name. The move will allow the company to sharpen its focus on premium Core, Evo, and vPro brands and sell more premium CPUs.
For now, Intel will continue to use Celeron and Pentium brands for desktop and embedded applications. When asked how this branding change would affect desktops, Intel told us, "Desktop has no new products in this segment slated for Q1 '23."
Intel's notebook product stack today includes a variety of Core-branded processors for high-performance, mid-range, and entry-level laptops, as well as Pentium and Celeron-badged CPUs for inexpensive essential systems. Starting from 2023 with notebooks, Intel will unite its Pentium and Celeron product families under the Intel Processor umbrella and will continue to address respective market segments. The new brand leaves unchanged Intel's existing processors (they will sell under their own names) and the company's product roadmap.
"The new Intel Processor branding will simplify our offerings so users can focus on choosing the right processor for their needs," said Josh Newman, Intel vice president and interim general manager of Mobile Client Platforms.
While the merge may clear up some confusion between various Pentium and Celeron-branded laptop offerings, it might also create some new puzzlements.
Intel's mobile Pentium Gold products are based on the company's designs featuring high-performance or high-performance and energy-efficient cores, therefore offering an experience comparable to that of fully-fledged Core processors. For example, the company currently offers Pentium Gold-badged Alder Lake CPUs with one high-performance Golden Cove and four energy-efficient Gracemont cores (8505).
Intel's mobile Celeron processors are also based on the company's designs with performance (6305) or performance and efficient cores (7305). However, since they sit below mobile Pentiums, they have lower clocks, have smaller caches, or lack certain features. Yet, these are still quite capable chips for basic workloads.
Merging mobile Pentium Gold and Celeron product families into one Intel Processor lineup makes sense on the condition that model numbers accurately represent their performance and capabilities.
There are other Celeron and Pentium-branded processors for laptops too. Intel's mobile Celeron N and Pentium Silver processors are based on energy-efficient Atom-class cores and barely offer performance that is even slightly close to that of mobile Pentium Gold and 'vanilla' Celeron CPUs with high-performance cores. Intel did not update these product families this year as its Alder Lake-N design featuring only energy-efficient Gracemont cores is not yet here. But Intel is certainly prepping these system-on-chips for launch, and they might address market segments of Celeron N and Pentium Silver.
We do not know whether or not Intel plans to add Alder Lake-N into the Intel Processor lineup for mobile PCs. But if it does, pouring in designs based solely on energy-efficient Atom-class cores into the lineup with quite different chips will create a lot of confusion.
