from the eight-times-one-is-not-equal-to-four-times-two dept.
AMD agrees to cough up $35-a-chip payout over eight-core Bulldozer advertising fiasco
AMD has agreed to pay purchasers of its FX Bulldozer processors a total of $12.1m to settle a four-year false advertising lawsuit.
Considering the number of processors sold and assuming a 20 per cent take-up by eligible purchasers, that works out to $35 a chip, the preliminary agreement argues: a figure that is "significantly more than 50 per cent of the value of their certified claims had they prevailed at trial."
It's a good deal, the agreement [PDF] explains, because of the "risks and expenses that further litigation would pose in this case."
The chip giant advertised its processors as being the "first native 8-core desktop processor" and charged a premium for it. But a significant number of those purchasers were then surprised to find that the chip did not contain eight fully independent, fully featured processing units but rather four Bulldozer modules that each contain a pair of fully fledged instruction-executing CPU cores.
A final nail in the module coffin.
Previously: AMD Sued by Customer Over Misrepresentation of "Multicore"
When is a CPU core not a CPU core? It's now up to a jury of 12 to decide.
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In 2011 AMD released the Bulldozer architecture, with a somewhat untraditional implementation of the "multicore" technology. Now, 4 years later, they are sued for false advertising, fraud and other "criminal activities". From TFA:
In claiming that its new Bulldozer CPU had "8-cores," which means it can perform eight calculations simultaneously, AMD allegedly tricked consumers into buying its Bulldozer processors by overstating the number of cores contained in the chips. Dickey alleges the Bulldozer chips functionally have only four cores—not eight, as advertised.
Core blimey... When is an AMD CPU core not a CPU core? It's now up to a jury of 12 to decide
A class-action lawsuit against AMD claiming false advertising over its "eight core" FX processors has been given the go-ahead by a California judge.
US district judge Haywood Gilliam last week rejected [PDF] AMD's claim that "a significant majority" of people understood the term "core" the same way it did as "not persuasive."
What tech buyers imagine represents a core when it comes to processors would be a significant part of such a lawsuit, the judge noted, and so AMD's arguments were "premature."
The so-called "eight core" chips contain four Bulldozer modules, the lawsuit notes, and these "sub-processors" each contain a pair of instruction-executing CPU cores. So, four modules times two CPU cores equals, in AMD's mind, eight CPU cores.
And here's the sticking point: these two CPU cores, within a single Bulldozer module, share caches, frontend circuitry, and a single floating point unit (FPU). These shared resources cause bottlenecks that can slow the processor, it is claimed.
The plaintiffs, who sued back in 2015, argue that they bought a chip they thought would have eight independent processor cores – the advertising said it was the "first native 8-core desktop processor" – and paid a premium for that.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday August 30 2019, @12:01AM (1 child)
I'm really conflicted about this situation. On the one hand:
Well, obviously it's not available in New York City, and it's stupid for anybody in New York City to complain it's false advertising.
They are clearly co-opting a commonly understood terminology and this is blatant false advertising.
For this Bulldozer case, I'm not sure which side of the spectrum it falls. I've heard compelling arguments that, "technical people know that cores are a technical thing which does not include a floating point calculator..." but not sure how much of that is spin.
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Also conflicted... does anybody know how much of the settlement goes to consumers and how much is going to the lawyers? And if the payout is going to be cash or some other non-cash compensation?
(Score: 4, Interesting) by takyon on Friday August 30 2019, @01:23AM
If you look at the marketing pre-Bulldozer, to the reaction after launch and reviews, it's clear that it was a disaster and a very misleading use of the term "core(s)".
According to the settlement, class members will get their money in the form of a check which they must cash within 90 days. Not a coupon for $X off a new Ryzen or anything like that.
[SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]