" if we look at the specifications, we will see that the new Celeron CPUs have lower clock frequencies and smaller L3 cache compared to Pentium. But the results of our tests show that it has very little effect on actual performance. There is no huge gap between LGA1155 Celeron and Pentium processors like the one we previously saw between Core i3 and Pentium CPUs. In other words, these two processor families are really close.
So, there is nothing surprising about the fact that the transition to LGA1155 platform has significantly boosted its performance compared with LGA775 predecessors. Sandy Bridge microarchitecture dramatically improved the performance of entry-level systems: by 50% on average and sometimes even twice as much.
Sandy Bridge microarchitecture has always performed very well in 3D games. And today is no exception. Unlike their predecessors, the new Celeron processors can deliver much higher fps rate. Moreover, the difference between the Celeron and Pentium processors doesn’t seem that significant at all, so low-cost Celeron G540 or Celeron G530 processors may be a good option for inexpensive gaming systems after all "
http://www.xbitlabs.com/articles/cpu/display/celeron-g540-g440_6.html#sect0