Celeron

A family of lower-cost Pentium chips from Intel. The first Celerons in 1998 were Pentium II chips without an L2 cache. In 1999, models included a 128KB cache, which increased performance. As subsequent Pentium chips were introduced with larger caches, the 128KB cache was retained for Celerons. In 2004, the Celeron M was introduced, which is a Centrino version of the Pentium M. See Celeron D, Centrino and Pentium M.

Greater Yields, Lower Price
Large caches use more transistors. The more transistors in a chip, the greater the chance that some of them are defective, and the chip has to be scrapped. Smaller caches result in greater yields for the chip manufacturer and therefore lower prices.

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(processor)

Celeron - Intel Corporation's trade name for its family of Pentium II microprocessors meant for use in low-end computers. The Celeron is constructed on the 0.25 micron Deschutes base. Clock rates of 266, 300 and 333 MHz are supported. It is built on the same daughterboard as the Pentium II without the black plastic case and heat sink. Four Celeron models are in production as of October 1998. The 266 and 300 MHz models are essentially Pentium II CPUs without the Level 2 cache RAM. The 300A and 333 MHz Celerons include 128k of Level 2 cache. A special mounting bracket on the motherboard is used to secure the Celeron in place in its standard 242-pin Slot 1 socket. Intel calls the caseless design SEPP (Single Edge Processor Package) to differentiate it from the Pentium II SEC (Single Edge Cartridge). Some believe that the real purpose for the different mounting configurations is to prevent users from placing lower cost processors onto Pentium II motherboards. A Celeron is about one third the cost of a similar speed Pentium II. Hardware hackers claim that the Celeron 300 without Level 2 cache could be overclocked to perform as well as a Pentium II at a fraction of the price. http://intel.com/Celeron/. Tom's Hardware.