Is Intel Celeron Good for Gaming?

Intel Celeron is among the weakest, if not THE weakest, line of CPUs in the market for laptop and desktop PCs. The biggest advantage they have to their side is their extremely budget price tag.

Anything that remotely requires a higher level of computing should look elsewhere. But for gamers on a budget out there, the question remains “is Intel Celeron good for gaming?”

Ideally, you should stay away from Celeron when it comes to gaming, however, there three important factors that determine whether you can game on Celeron or not.

1. The model of the Intel Celeron CPU
2. The games that you intend to play
3. Whether you have dedicated GPU or not

The general notion is that the Intel Celeron CPUs are intended for very low demanding workloads such as writing reports, web surfing, email correspondence, social media use etc.

Gaming is among the most demanding work that you can do on a PC. However, there are levels of gaming. AAA gaming, for instance, requires a better CPU (at least a Core i3). Pro gaming may require even a more powerful CPU such as an Intel Core i5 or better.

But if you are a casual gamer you can get away with it particularly if you have one of the latest flagship Celeron models.

Generally though, Celeron based laptops are certainly a no go for gaming. However, with desktops you have the option to add in a dedicated graphics card with a Celeron CPU – this arrangement can work for gaming reasonably well.

Also Read: Is Core i7 Good for Gaming?

The Popular Intel Celeron Models for Desktop and Laptop PCs

The following table lists the popular latest gen Intel Celeron CPUs for desktop and laptop based PCs. I have also added in the flagship Pentium and Core i3 CPUs for comparison sake.

Note:

• Desktop based Intel Celeron CPUs have the ‘G’ Prefix
• Laptop based Intel Celeron CPUs have the ‘N’ Prefix

The table above shows a handful of latest popular and flagship Intel Celerons CPUs.

It is worth noting that just because a certain CPUs is flagship (i.e the most powerful in its series), does not mean that it is popular.

Take for instance, the Intel Celeron N5100 released in 2021. This is an excellent and a very powerful Laptop based CPU. Surprisingly, this is a rare Celeron specimen to feature 4 cores and 4 threads. However, it is NOT popular as of yet.

The most popular Celeron CPU for laptops at the moment is the Intel Celeron N4020 released back in 2019.

This fact is important to highlight because when buying a Intel Celeron PC for gaming, you have to make sure which models are readily available. This would form the basis for analysis.

Also, quite naturally, the desktop based variants are often much more powerful than the laptop based models. There can be exceptions.

Also Read: Difference Between Pentium and Core i3 Processors

CPU Requirements of Popular Gaming Titles

Knowing the system requirements of various gaming titles would help us understand if Celeron CPUs are suitable for gaming or not.

There are two types of games mostly:

• Popular Online Games / Esports Titles
• AAA Titles

CPU Requirements by Popular Online / Esports Titles

These are often intended to be played by the masses and hence have a lower hardware requirements compared to AAA titles.

Pay attention to the corresponding Passmark score for each processor.

For Popular Online Games Celeron Meets The CPU Requirements

Both laptop and desktop based Celeron CPU do meet the minimum requirements of most of the popular online titles judging by the Passmark scores.

CPU Requirement by AAA Titles

AAA titles often have a more robust system requirements and hence require a much more powerful CPU.

Pay attention to the corresponding Passmark score for each processor.

For AAA Games Celeron DOES NOT Meet The CPU Requirements

For the latest demanding AAA titles, the Celeron CPUs do not come close to meeting even the minimum requirements.

Celeron CPU Benchmark

• Results taken from cpubenchmark.net

Officially speaking, the laptop based Intel Celeron CPUs are truly weak. The Intel Celeron N4020 does not even meet the minimum requirements for Minecraft!

Also Read:

• Is a dual core processor good for gaming?
• Is a quad core processor good for gaming?

So Is Intel Celeron Good for Gaming?

The answer to this question again depends upon:

1. Which games you Intend to play
2. The model of your Celeron CPU
3. Whether you have a decent dedicated graphics cards or not.

A laptop with a Celeron CPU should certainly be avoided for any manner of gaming.

As far as the desktop models go, for most popular online games like League of Legends, World of Warcraft or Minecraft the latest models such as the G5905 can suffice.

But in reality, the performance that you get also depends heavily upon the graphics card you have.

Celeron Based Laptops have Very Weak GPUs

For mobile based Celeron systems, the real issue lies with the graphics card.

As a rule of thumb, since Celeron based laptops are intended for the budget segment, they DO NOT offer a dedicated graphics card.

Instead Celeron based laptops only offer a very weak integrated GPU. The Intel N4020, for instance features the Intel UHD 600 – a GPU on the button rung of the graphics performance.

While this is good enough for very few games like League of Legends, but for anything more demanding like Fortnite, World of Warcraft, this would show serious limitations.

Also Read: What is a Good Processor Speed for Laptop?

Celeron Based Desktops Can be Coupled with Good Graphics Cards

Like the laptop based Celeron CPUs, the Desktop based models also feature a very weak integrated graphics card.

The Celeron G5905, for instance, features the Intel UHD 610 which is better than Intel UHD 600 found on the N4020, but still on the bottom rung of the performance.

However, with desktops you have the option to couple the Celeron CPU with a decent low to mid range graphics card such as the AMD RX 560, Nvidia GT 1050, or the NVIDIA GTX 1650 etc.

With a setup like this, you can get excellent results on not only for the popular online titles including the more demanding ones like Fortnite, Rocket League, but also on AAA titles.

GPUs and Their Relative G3D Performance Score

As far as the performance of the integrated graphics found on Celeron CPUs go, they are abysmal to say the least. The Intel UHD 600 found on the Celeron N4020 is worse than the Intel HD 4000 released way back in 2012.

• Results taken from videocardbenchmark.net

Coupling an Intel Celeron G5905 with an AMD RX 560 can give you decent performance for almost ALL popular online titles.

Also Read: What is AMD Equivalent to Core i3?