Companies fudging benchmark scores isn’t new, although it seems that after nearly a decade and a half later, Intel has been accused of fudging the benchmark scores of the Pentium 4 processors back in the early 2000s. A class action lawsuit has recently been filed against Intel on behalf of those who bought an Intel Pentium 4-based PC in the US from November 20th 2000 to June 30th 2002.
The lawsuit alleges that in order to make their processors seem more competitive than AMD’s Athlon chipset back, Intel had manipulated the benchmarks in their favor. Naturally Intel is denying these claims, but at the same time a proposed settlement has since been reach that could see Intel having to pay its customers a fine of $15 each.
This might not seem like a lot, but considering how many Pentium 4 processors have been sold over the years, safe to say that this lawsuit could end up costing Intel millions of dollars. The lawsuit will also see that Intel donate $4 million to education non-profits. Now if you’re wondering how on earth are you going to prove you owned a Pentium 4 PC, it seems that a receipt will not be needed in order to file a claim.
If you think that you do indeed deserve this $15 for being “manipulated” by Intel into purchasing a Pentium 4-based PC over an AMD Athlon computer, you can head on over to this website for the details and to file your claim.