The $42 Intel CPU: Celeron G6900 Review

[Steve]

It's been a long time since we dedicated a full review to a Celeron processor, but we’ve been keen to explore the most entry-level Alder Lake CPUs after testing the impressive Core i3-12100F. Going right to the bottom of the lineup, here's the Intel Celeron G6900.

Read the full article here.

https://www.techspot.com/review/2415-intel-celeron-g6900/

 

[paul1122]

Even with its low numbers, it still beats anything AMD brings to the table. So, our conclusion is just don't buy a CPU.

 

[ilovelinux]

A CPU that is not worthy of the motherboard it will be paired to, nor the time and effort required in reviewing it.

 

[0dium]

Even with its low numbers, it still beats anything AMD brings to the table. So, our conclusion is just don't buy a CPU.

What are you talking about? My 4 year old Ryzen 1300x is faster than this useless garbage

 

[pencea]

What are you talking about? My 4 year old Ryzen 1300x is faster than this useless garbage

His anti AMD going by his comment history.

 

[maroon1]

What are you talking about? My 4 year old Ryzen 1300x is faster than this useless garbage

Pentium G7400 should easily beat 1300X though.

 

[Watzupken]

Even with its low numbers, it still beats anything AMD brings to the table. So, our conclusion is just don't buy a CPU.

Which AMD chip are you basing your comments/ comparison on specifically?

At that price point, there are no AMD chips to compete with. Closest Ryzen chip at this price point us going to be either the first or second generation Ryzen chips. However, even the older Ryzen 1xxx series is going to be faster than this. The Golden Cove is a very capable P-Core, but in this case, the lack of threads basically kills performance. This is especially so when there are an increasing number of background workload running in Windows 10 and 11. Any older 4 core Ryzen or Intel chips will easily outrun this. So the results here is not surprising at all. I've been using a mini PC that comes with a Ryzen 5 2500U, and I certainly don't think I've seen such poor results. In fact, I can even game with the Vega iGPU with playable framerates at low settings.

 

[fps4ever]

Even with its low numbers, it still beats anything AMD brings to the table. So, our conclusion is just don't buy a CPU.

That was really weak. Do better next time.

 

[Nintenboy01]

This thing only really makes sense maybe for internet cafes or offices buying dozens of them. Or a really low-income household that needs basic computing. The Pentium should be a lot better and probably less than $20 more

 

[elementalSG]

This what I love about Techspot; no other site is going to review this lowly chip, but Techspot does “for science” and to satisfy the curiosities of readers like me (what can you do with the crappiest Alder Lake CPU?)

 

[Shadowboxer]

With all due respect this is a dreadful review. The reviewer has assumed we will be using it to game with which is absurd, compared it to much more expensive CPUs and gone "see look it doesnt game its bad". But theres no comparison to products in its own price range and no comparison to older systems that this thing could replace. The next cheapest product on this test is more than twice the price. People arent buying a celeron to game on, there are dozens of potential applications but that isnt one of them. In my old office we had a celeron machine next a printer. I know someone who uses one as a minecraft server. Is this thing capable of being used in a media PC? So many unanswered questions.

Where I live the Athlon 220GE is a mere £10 more than the G6900, it would have been nice to find out which is faster at what you might use these things for which means not gaming!

 

[dragosmp]

(...)

Where I live the Athlon 220GE is a mere £10 more than the G6900, it would have been nice to find out which is faster at what you might use these things for which means not gaming!

This is correct.

However, I used to live in a place where a 40$ CPU was exactly what you used for gaming, cause that was 3 months worth of disposable income, and I was reading these same websites. I personally did a stretch, ran without a case (just flat mobo on the table and starting the PSU by shorting the mobo header pins) and bought myself an overclokable Athlon chip for about 100$.

I whish cheap CPU reviews would have more overcloking results. Why no OCing on this chip, we know it can almost double its frequency! The best perf/$ wisdom is still to buy the most cores you can afford and OC to max out the clock speed

 

[JCX88]

With all due respect this is a dreadful review. The reviewer has assumed we will be using it to game with which is absurd, compared it to much more expensive CPUs and gone "see look it doesnt game its bad". But theres no comparison to products in its own price range and no comparison to older systems that this thing could replace. The next cheapest product on this test is more than twice the price. People arent buying a celeron to game on, there are dozens of potential applications but that isnt one of them. In my old office we had a celeron machine next a printer. I know someone who uses one as a minecraft server. Is this thing capable of being used in a media PC? So many unanswered questions.

Where I live the Athlon 220GE is a mere £10 more than the G6900, it would have been nice to find out which is faster at what you might use these things for which means not gaming!

I don't quite get the possible use case for Celeron.

Because like reviewer mention you can get system that's same price, but based on older 10-series and it's far more bang for the buck with 10100. It'll work better for Minecraft server. It'll work better for windows, file-server, whatever.

Like whatever you going to use it for has to have absolutely no use for more than 2 threads. What is that in 2022?

And the only reason you'd actually need that is to save $10-20 betting that it will not experience any compatibility problems later which isn't smart on windows. Even if you have some niche app that's specially single threaded and doesn't require large cache which is a big "IF" that's still doesn't justify going for it.

Best scenario is that you save $10-20 and lose 30% performance.

 

[theruck]

"there are much better alternatives for essentially the same price."
you forgot to mention those $42 CPUs you can buy today instead of this one
your affiliate links showing double the price so we really do not know what you are talking about in the article?
"Given you can buy the Core i3 processor for $85 right now, it makes the G6900 very hard to justify for just $10 less," in what universe is $85 just 10 more than $42?
in Europe the 12100F is 85%-100% more expensive than G6900

 

[phinn888]

Downclock this to a 10W part and pop this into a mini PC with two gigabit ports and it will be perfect for an OpenWrt or pfSense router with gigabit SQM, nftables firewall, samba 4 shares, adblock, etc.

 

[Sausagemeat]

I don't quite get the possible use case for Celeron.

Because like reviewer mention you can get system that's same price, but based on older 10-series and it's far more bang for the buck with 10100. It'll work better for Minecraft server. It'll work better for windows, file-server, whatever.

Like whatever you going to use it for has to have absolutely no use for more than 2 threads. What is that in 2022?

And the only reason you'd actually need that is to save $10-20 betting that it will not experience any compatibility problems later which isn't smart on windows. Even if you have some niche app that's specially single threaded and doesn't require large cache which is a big "IF" that's still doesn't justify going for it.

Best scenario is that you save $10-20 and lose 30% performance.

This Celeron would be handy for the deskview monitors at my old office. They did have dual core i3s back when I was working there some years ago but they just host a window which gets sent the feed remotely, the CPU usage is about 5% of an old i3.

My brother has recently bought a thin little machine for use as a media Center, can this Celeron do this? Can it play back 4K video? Stream video?

There is also GeForce Now. Can a celeron equipped machine comfortably stream games on GeForce now?

I can think of dozens of uses for a dirt cheap CPU. Sure it has bad value compared to more expensive parts but if it’s good enough then it doesn’t matter.

 

[p51d007]

For a "terminal", point of sale type thing, probably good enough.

 

[paul1122]

Which AMD chip are you basing your comments/ comparison on specifically?

At that price point, there are no AMD chips to compete with. Closest Ryzen chip at this price point us going to be either the first or second generation Ryzen chips. However, even the older Ryzen 1xxx series is going to be faster than this. The Golden Cove is a very capable P-Core, but in this case, the lack of threads basically kills performance. This is especially so when there are an increasing number of background workload running in Windows 10 and 11. Any older 4 core Ryzen or Intel chips will easily outrun this. So the results here is not surprising at all. I've been using a mini PC that comes with a Ryzen 5 2500U, and I certainly don't think I've seen such poor results. In fact, I can even game with the Vega iGPU with playable framerates at low settings.

lol.

 

[human7]

Comparing this chip to a Raspberry Pi or for use in IOT workloads would be a more apt comparison.

The Raspberry Pi is better (even the 1st one, since it has all the connecting peripherals that a raw CPU does not).

But if someone out there is making a board out there with this chip, then it would be a more interesting review. Of course you have to compare the whole board at that point, not just the chip.

That being said, I am impressed that a lot of the games listed here even launched. I wonder if low graphics settings would have improved the situation to playable in a few cases.

 

[seeprime]

Pentium G7400 should easily beat 1300X though.

They're probably a lot closer to each other in non-gaming performance than you might think. The G7400 has a Passmark CPU mark of 6872. The 1300X is 6895.

 

[dob_1]

I can think of dozens of uses for a dirt cheap CPU. Sure it has bad value compared to more expensive parts but if it’s good enough then it doesn’t matter.

I agree. While there may be better CPUs at the same price, the real purpose of a CPU at this level is not the things tested. Would it be OK for word processing? What about basic graphics in documents? Browsing the Internet? Viewing and streaming movies and/or music? Apart from a remote desktop, a CPU like this would be for basic word processing and consumption - if it works.

 

[Duzenko]

With all due respect this is a dreadful review. The reviewer has assumed we will be using it to game with which is absurd, compared it to much more expensive CPUs and gone "see look it doesnt game its bad". But theres no comparison to products in its own price range and no comparison to older systems that this thing could replace. The next cheapest product on this test is more than twice the price. People arent buying a celeron to game on, there are dozens of potential applications but that isnt one of them. In my old office we had a celeron machine next a printer. I know someone who uses one as a minecraft server. Is this thing capable of being used in a media PC? So many unanswered questions.

Where I live the Athlon 220GE is a mere £10 more than the G6900, it would have been nice to find out which is faster at what you might use these things for which means not gaming!

Exactly
Not even mentioning the "same price" 10100F has been phased out and selling out to clear stock AND it requires at least a $100 discrete GPU

 

[amghwk]

Please highlight the CPU-in-review in the charts, like usually done for any benchmark reviews.

And is it's scoring based largely on it's performance in gaming?

Surely it would benefit budget category where people just email or do light word processing?

 

[Homo Sapien]

With all due respect this is a dreadful review. The reviewer has assumed we will be using it to game with which is absurd, compared it to much more expensive CPUs and gone "see look it doesnt game its bad". But theres no comparison to products in its own price range and no comparison to older systems that this thing could replace. The next cheapest product on this test is more than twice the price. People arent buying a celeron to game on, there are dozens of potential applications but that isnt one of them. In my old office we had a celeron machine next a printer. I know someone who uses one as a minecraft server. Is this thing capable of being used in a media PC? So many unanswered questions.

Where I live the Athlon 220GE is a mere £10 more than the G6900, it would have been nice to find out which is faster at what you might use these things for which means not gaming!

Totally agree. I was glad to see that there is a review for entry-level CPU (can't remember last time I read a Celeron review!), but quite disappointed that the author just compared it with 10th gen i3 or above and with many gaming tests. I am interested to read some comparisons between this Celeron to a dual-core i3, Athlon and Pentium/Celeron from previous generations.

 

[nismo91]

As much as I appreciate techspot reviewing crappy CPU like this I wish they'd use old system as comparison.

maybe core i5 2500 from a decade ago would still be faster than this CPU. I mean there's no use using i9 12900K as a comparison, even if they can disable all but 2 cores.