Do you remember the Pentium 4? It was a revolutionary new CPU released by Intel Corporation in 2000 – yes, 14 years ago. It was an instant hit – for years, all processors on the market were compared to it. It was a high performance piece of technology, setting a new benchmark for computing. Or was it? A class action lawsuit initiated in California claims that “Intel manipulated the performance benchmark scores for its first-generation Pentium 4 processors and that HP aided and abetted Intel’s allegedly unlawful conduct”. The processor maker and HP have denied the claims, but are willing to settle and pay up.
Customers that have purchased an Intel Pentium 4 processor between November 20, 2000 and December 31, 2001, can visit the settlement site at www.intelpentium4litigation.com and submit their claim to the law firm Gilardi & Co, and receive a payment of $15 each. Another group of customers who have purchased Intel’s Willamette Pentium 4, with speeds below 2 GHz between January 1st and June 30th 2002 are also eligible for payment. The settlement applies only to those purchasing complete computers equipped with the above-mentioned processors, not those buying the processors themselves.
According to the allegations of the lawsuit, Intel Corporation was aware of the fact that its own Pentium III and AMD’s Athlon XP outperformed the Pentium 4, even in their in-house benchmarks. The text states that Intel has falsely improved the performance scores of the processor, writing benchmarks that would give Pentium 4 a higher score. Besides, Intel allegedly paid software companies to make changes to their benchmarks to make Pentium 4 an apparently higher performance processor, and even disabled certain features in Pentium III to make Pentium 4 appear to be better. The lawsuit’s text also indicates the benchmarks that were allegedly created by Intel specially to make its Pentium 4 appear to be a better CPU – WebMark 2001 and SysMark 2001.