Intel has quietly added two new economical processors to its Comet Lake U series. The Pentium Gold 6405U and Celeron 5205U CPUs are used for lightweight and low-end notebooks that require a latest-generation processor but are not designed for high-performance workloads.
The Intel Pentium Gold 6405U and Celeron 5205U processors are dual-core processors that operate at 2.4 GHz and 1.9 GHz, respectively. Both CPUs feature 15-watt TDPs – like the rest of the Comet Lake U family – and include 2MB of L3 cache, Intel UHD graphics, dual-channel DDR4/LPDDR3 memory control, and 12 PCIe 2.0 tracks for expansion.
Both models are significantly less expensive than the other models in the Comet Lake series (starting at 281 USD): The Pentium Gold 6405U processor has a customer recommended price of 161 USD, while the Celeron 5205U costs 107 USD when purchased in quantities of 1000 units.
So far, Intel’s Comet Lake U family included only four CPUs, three of which were designed for premium laptops. The addition of significantly cheaper processors allows Intel to address more market segments with its Comet Lake products by enabling its partners to build cheaper devices with the latest motherboard designs.
The new Pentium and Celeron chips have a lower clock rate than the Core i3-10110U, allowing Intel to use silicon that otherwise could not be used as Core i3. This is particularly important for Intel at a time when demand for low-cost U-Series mobile CPUs is very high, helping the company satisfy its partners who have suffered from a shortage of 14nm Intel processors in recent quarters.