Intel pays $15 for every Willamette P4 owner

Intel Corp. agreed to a $15 settlement in a class action lawsuit claiming the company manipulated benchmark scores to show that its Pentium 4 chip, codenamed Willamette, was faster and better compared with the competition.

"Intel used its enormous resources and influence in the computing industry to, in Intel's own words, 'falsely improve' the Pentium 4's performance scores," as specified in the court document provided by Gilardi & Co.

"It secretly wrote benchmark tests that would give the Pentium 4 higher scores, then released and marketed these 'new' benchmarks to performance reviewers as 'independent third-party' benchmarks. It paid software companies to make covert programming changes to inflate the Pentium 4's performance scores and even disabled features on the Pentium III so that the Pentium 4's scores would look better by comparison."

The tech giant will pay the affected consumers—with the exception of those who reside in Illinois—the said price, only if they purchased a Pentium 4 system between November 20, 2000 and June 30, 2002. The system in question includes a first-generation Willamette P4 or all processors clocked below 2GHz.

The purchase receipt is not a requirement in order to qualify for the reimbursement. The claimants only have to list the model number of the system they bought.

Moreover, Intel will donate up to $4 million to an education fund, as part of its settlement.

Even in its agreement to settle, Intel still denies that it manipulated performance benchmark scores for its Willamette P4 processors. In a court document containing Intel's statement, the company declared that it believes the claims are without merit, and asserted that it did not violate the law.

- Jairia Dela Cruz
??EE Times India