The Logic Off Topic list

What? Only thousands of Plaintiffs?

 


Intel, PC Makers Sued Over P4 Performance


http://www.pcworld.com/news/article/0,aid,104075,tk,dn081602X,00.asp

by Tom Mainelli, PCWorld.com  Friday, August 16, 2002


Customers seek class action status in charge that vendors misrepresented 

the power of Intel's top chip.


A small group of PC owners has quietly filed a class action lawsuit 

against Intel, Gateway, and Hewlett-Packard alleging the companies 

misled them into believing the Pentium 4 was a superior processor to 

Intel's own Pentium III and AMD's Athlon.


The complaint--Neubauer et al v. Intel et al--was filed June 3 in the 

Third Judicial Circuit in Madison County, Illinois. The case is in limbo 

awaiting a ruling on whether it belongs in a state or federal 

jurisdiction, and has not yet achieved class action status. It came to 

light this week after a copy of the complaint was sent to PCWorld.com 

anonymously.


The plaintiffs claim the companies deceived the public when marketing 

Intel's flagship processor and allege that it is "the material fact that 

there is no benefit to consumers in choosing the Pentium 4 over the 

Pentium III." The complaint alleges that "the Pentium 4 is less powerful 

and slower than the Pentium III and/or the AMD Athlon."




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Date: Mon, 19 Aug 2002 21:40:58 -0400

From: Barry Ritholtz <ritholtz@optonline.net>
Subject: [MacMarines] Intel, PC Makers Sued Over P4 Performance Claims
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TazmnianDv@... wrote:

>What? Only thousands of Plaintiffs?
>Intel, PC Makers Sued Over P4 Performance
>http://www.pcworld.com/news/article/0,aid,104075,tk,dn081602X,00.asp

 ;-)

Hmm -- looks like I missed out on a piece of that action. 

When the Willamette P4 came out nearly 2 years ago at 1.4 and 1.5 GHz and
with 256kB L2 cache it was expensive and actully a poorer performer on the
existing code than the then fastest PIIIs -- (X87 FPU particularly) . The
RDRAM memory that Intel paired the P4 with was way more expensive (eg 6x)
than PC 133 SDRAM at that time. The verdict of the PC hardware sites was --
don't buy one at this stage. Athlon's T'birds were way better for the money
-- there were some heating and chipset/compatibility issues which scared a
few DAW people but lots of fast cheap DAWs ran on Athlons. 

With the arrival of 0.13 micron Northwood P4 with 512KB of cache, much
higher clock speeds (2.8 Ghz coming out in the next few days) faster memory
bus (533 Mhz) and fast and now cheaper memory (RDRAM and DDR) this
situation no longer applys. The SSE2 units on P4 (which are analogous to
the Altivec units on G4s) are now being exploited by a lot more software
(eg Logic/Cubase/Nuendo and soon PSP plugs ). 

When all/most of  your favourite software has been revised to use the new
instructions,  the performance advantages of the P4 architecture over the
PIII architecture become evident. Sure  -- the PIII is still faster clock
for clock but this architecture will not scale to the speeds of P4 and
AthlonXP/Hammer because it lacks the memory bandwidth and the deep pipelines. 

Intel is actually making a kind of PIII/P4 hybrid called Banias for low
power applications like laptops and low power servers. Banias is more or
less a PIII core with the much faster P4 memory bus grafted on  and it is
due to hit the fan early next year starting at 1.6 GHz or so. 

Of course when Intel brought out the P4 they didn't say -- Just wait a
couple of years people it's gonna be great. Nevertheless P4 is currently
the best game in town and has been for a while now. AMD's Hammer may change
that and it will also support the P4's  SSE2 instructions.

Another thing to consider  --  Intel are by all reports going to enable
multi-threading on a single CPU in new chipsets due this year. Apparently
Northwood CPUs support this capability already but current chipsets don't. 
The OS sees a "hyperthreading" CPU as 2 CPUs and so an OS version capable
of supporting more CPUs is necessary under Windows NT/2000/XP  -- perhaps
Intel and M$ will work something out here. 

It will be interesting to see what impact (if any) this capability will
have on music apps like Cubase/Nuendo. The end Logic development on the
Windows platform will almost certainly mean Logic never supports
multi-processing or multi-threading on Windows. 

Regards,
Murray

> TazmnianDv@... wrote:
> 
>> What? Only thousands of Plaintiffs?

Read it again...the article does say, "hundreds of thousands" but then sites
50 Million P4's shipped.

-----------
Thousands of Plaintiffs?

Noting the sheer number of P4s Intel has sold, the complaint goes on to say
the "Class is so numerous that the individual joinder of all members is
impracticable" and that the Class could include "hundreds of thousands of
members." According to MicroDesign Resources, Intel has shipped upward of 50
million P4s since its launch in November 2000.
-----------

>> Intel, PC Makers Sued Over P4 Performance
>> http://www.pcworld.com/news/article/0,aid,104075,tk,dn081602X,00.asp
> 
> ;-)
> 
> Hmm -- looks like I missed out on a piece of that action.

Actually, you may not have missed out on anything...Neubauer et al v. Intel
et al.  "Et al" in SOME cases, means all the consumers that participated in
buying these products at a particular time.  They may be fighting for you as
well.  Which may involve you as a consumer.  If Neubauer et al wins the
case.  That means, you MAY get a letter in the mail from Intel et al, to
compensate you in some way.  You then sign up and receive compensation.

However the article says here:
-----------
The complaint does not name the monetary amount sought by the plaintiffs. It
does, however, cite what it says is law in California--where the companies
are headquartered--that each plaintiff is entitled to actual damages,
restitution of property, and punitive damages. The complaint notes that the
cumulative total would be less than $75,000 each.
-----------

So, the article kind of insinuates that you may have prove your own case
against Intel.  Just because 50 million were shipped, doesn't mean that 50
million are actually in use.  Yet the details of the case, seem rather vague
as to how this can be achieved by you the individual...As to, whether it
means you have sign up with Neubauer et al or sue on an individual basis,
under the same concept of deception.  That can only be determined by you and
a lawyer.  However the article does list lawyers names that are involved in
the case.


Here are just some of the names:
-----------
Attorneys Stephen M. Tillery and Aaron M. Zigler of the law firm Carr Korein
Tillery in St. Louis, Missouri, filed the complaint on behalf of five
plaintiffs. The firm declines to comment about the case, but Zigler confirms
the June 3 filing. 
-----------

Notice they are filing against Intel, et al as well.  So if you really feel
like doing it...call or email one of the lawyers at the law firm Carr Korein
Tillery in St. Louis, Missouri regarding your rights in this case.

Anyway, this happened to me with my Zip Drive.  I bought one when they first
came out.  The company was taken to court by two individuals, et al.  The
case was determined the Iomega was at fault.  I then received a letter to
sign up for compensation.  But mine was product bought at a certain time.
If I remember correctly, it was consumers who bought between 92 to 94.  By
the time I got the letter, I didn't care about it.  It was just too little
to bother.  But in case like this, it might be a bit larger in compensation.
But does not seem to clarify "et al" as being you involved as well.  It is
kind a "Read between the lines" type of article.  You may have to act in
your own interest.  Though when it is all said and done, I don't think
anyone will get everything back...really.

Peace,
Alexis