$15 to all: Intel settles AMD Athlon benchmarking class action lawsuit

Intel has finally agreed to pay $15 to people who may have purchased a Pentium 4 system between 2000-2002 - the payout comes from a class action lawsuit alleging the company manipulated benchmark scores in order to give the appearance that the Pentium 4 was faster than AMD’s Athlon.

According to ExtremeTech, Intel will pay affected consumers $15 if they purchased a Pentium 4 system between November 20, 2000 and June 30, 2002. Affected systems include all systems with a Pentium 4 CPU purchased between November 20, 2000 and December 31, 2001 — and all systems with a first-gen Willamette P4 or all P4s clocked below 2GHz, between January and June 2002. The exception is Illinois — if you live in Illinois and bought a P4, too bad for you.



Don’t worry about digging up a receipt for the purchase — the only thing you’re required to do is list the model number of the system you bought, and you qualify for the $15 reimbursement. You are required to verify under penalty of perjury that you belong to the stated class, but that’s the extent of the problem.

Intel will also make a $4 million donation to an education fund as part of its settlement.