Is Intel Going to Kill its Celeron Processor Brand?

There are some rumors that Intel could be phasing out the Celeron brand for low-end processors.

The information comes courtesy of TweakTown, which says that Intel may be replacing Celerons with Pentiums. So far, there is not much substance to this rumor as it is based on speculation surrounding the release of the Pentium 350 as a low-end part for servers.

In the past, Intel has occasionally played with the idea to get rid of some old brand names that carried baggage with somewhat negative connotations. For example, we had credible information back in the beginning of 2006 that Intel was pretty much set to drop the Pentium brand. As the first Core 2 Duo processors (Conroe core) were prepared to replace the 65 nm Pentium 4 processors, which had assumed a reputation of being inferior to AMD's Athlon X2 series while emitting Bunsen burner heat. However, Intel kept the Pentium brand on life support and eventually established it as the identifier mid-range CPUs between Core and Celeron CPUs.

Intel currently offers four desktop Celerons with tray prices from $37 to $52 as well as nine mobile Celerons with prices from $70 to $134. Intel could be dropping the Celeron brand at any given time and, given the brands recognition, few may care if Pentiums took their place.