My Amazon Prime Day warning: Please don't buy PC or laptops using these CPUs

The two CPU I absolutely recommend are the Intel Celeron N95 and the Intel Celeron N100, which can be found in PC as low as $130 hit around 5500 CPU mark, not far from a 600% improvement on the slowest processor listed below. That’s similar to a 10th generation Core i7 CPU. 

1. Intel Atom x5-Z8350 - 900 CPU Mark

This is by far the worst mainstream processor currently found in desktop PC (and laptops and tablets). Launched in 2016, it targeted entry-level, cheap laptops and affordable tablets; even if it has four cores, a relatively high base clock speed (1.44GHz) and four threads, the fact that it lacks level-3 cache is a killer. Most vendors pair it with only 4GB of RAM and the slowest storage around (eMMC) which impair its overall performance even more. Only buy if there’s a clear request for that particular processor (or if you want to play an expensive prank on someone). 

❌Windows 11 doesn’t support this CPU

2.  Intel Celeron N3350 - 1113 CPU Mark 

Don’t get me wrong: I have a weak spot for Celeron processors but Intel made it particularly difficult to distinguish between the dud ones and the spectacularly-good ones. The N3350 is as bad as it gets; launched only a few months after the Z8350, it has only two cores and two threads but a similar amount of L2 cache (2MB) and L3 cache (zero). It haw a higher TDP, which means that it can stay at higher clock speeds for longer, hence why it scores about 20% higher in benchmarks. Even then, I strongly recommend just giving laptops and desktops based on the N3350 a very, very wide berth. 

❌Windows 11 doesn’t support this CPU

3.   AMD A6-1450 - 1117 CPU Mark

Next up is AMD’s answer to the Atom; the A6-1450 is an APU, which means that it combines a CPU and a GPU (for video). Like its Intel rival, it has four cores, four threads, no level-3 cache and tiny TDP which means that it is destined to go in tablets and laptop (where you can’t really have CPUs with a high clock speed that can run very hot). The 1450 suffers from similar shortcomings as well; vendors tend to team it up with slow storage (eMMC) and low amount of system memory (RAM), the perfect recipe for a sluggish, hair-pulling experience. Avoid 

❌Windows 11 doesn’t support this CPU

4. Intel Celeron N4000, N4020 and N4020C - as low as 1354 CPU Mark

It’s hard to believe that all the Intel parts listed here share the same fundamental characteristics: they were built for low-power, entry level mobile platforms using a mature but limited process (14nm) but made their way into desktop PC. What’s even more surprising is that Intel saw it fit to launch a 2-core, 2-thread chip, the N4020C, in 2021. Like the other Celeron CPUs in this article, they suffer from the low core/thread count, a low base frequency and sub-par graphic performance. Unlike the other processors on this list, Windows 11 does support these processors.