Intel Celeron G6900 2-core LGA1700

The G6900 is a budget chip that knows exactly what it is: cheap, basic, and good enough for everyday tasks. Buy it for a simple office PC, not for anything that needs real muscle.

Single-thread performance is the one bright spot here, landing well above average for budget chips. That 2666 PassMark single-core score means everyday tasks like web browsing, email, and word processing feel snappier than you'd expect from a Celeron. Multi-thread is a different story, it's mediocre at best, and anything that wants real parallel horsepower will make this chip sweat. The integrated UHD Graphics 710 handles basic display duties fine, but don't even think about gaming beyond solitaire.

Against the AMD Ryzen 5 9600X, this isn't even a fair fight, the Ryzen has six times the threads and vastly better multi-thread performance. But it also costs several times more. The Dell Xeon E5-2637 V2 is an interesting alternative if you're building a cheap used workstation, it's older but has more cores for multi-threaded work. The be quiet! Ryzen 3 Dark Rock Pro 5 is a cooler, not a CPU, so that's not really a competitor. For pure budget builds, the G6900 holds its own against other entry-level chips, but it's the platform features, not raw performance, that make it interesting.

At USD 79 to USD 108 across US listings, this chip is cheap, but the spread matters. Newegg has the best deal at the low end, so don't overpay. In Canada, you're looking at CAD 153 to CAD 173, and again, shop around. For a basic productivity build, the value is solid. But if you can stretch your budget even a little, a used Ryzen 3 or older i3 will run circles around this thing.

The Intel Celeron G6900 is the cheapest ticket into Intel's 12th Gen platform, and honestly, that's its whole pitch. Two cores, two threads, 3.4GHz, and a 46W TDP. It won't impress anyone running benchmarks for fun, but for a basic office PC or a kid's homework machine, it gets the job done without emptying your wallet. The real story here is the platform: you get PCIe 5.0 support and DDR5 compatibility on a chip that costs less than a decent dinner for two.

If you're planning to do any gaming, video editing, streaming, or anything that needs more than two threads, this isn't your chip. Go grab a used Ryzen 5 3600 or an i3-12100 instead, you'll spend a bit more but get dramatically better performance. This Celeron is strictly for basic productivity and budget builds where every dollar counts.

The Celeron G6900 is a one-trick pony, but it's a useful trick. If you need the cheapest possible CPU for a basic Windows machine, a home server, or a light office PC, this is a perfectly fine choice. The included cooler, DDR4/DDR5 flexibility, and PCIe 5.0 support give it more longevity than you'd expect from a budget chip. Just don't ask it to do anything demanding, and you'll be happy.