Is Intel’s Celeron saying goodbye?

Since 1998, Intel’s Celeron brand has been the red-headed stepchild of the company, a value chip designed to be installed in the absolute cheapest computers so that Intel could compete with companies like AMD, which were well entrenched in the value computing space.

But Celeron has never really gotten any respect. Out of the box, performance is dismal, and it’s only been through the overclocking efforts of a few power-mad PC hackers that Celeron has maintained any mindshare at all. Its current share among all desktop chips sold by Intel hovers around 5 percent.

Now rumors are surfacing that Celeron is on its way out, possibly as early as this year. Xbitlabs says it’s seen Intel roadmaps that omit Celeron with the next generation of products. In its stead, Intel appears to be planning to use the Atom brand — previously relegated to netbooks and other ultra-mobile devices — where Celeron once ruled.