Intel Corp. (NASDAQ:INTC) and Hewlett-Packard Company (NASDAQ:HPQ) have arrived at a new settlement, according to which, buyers of Pentium 4 will receive $15. A lawsuit was filed in California claiming that Intel Corp. (NASDAQ:INTC) allegedly manipulated performance benchmarks for their first generation, P4 processors. The lawsuit also claims that HP (NASDAQ:HPQ) had supported and helped Intel Corp. (NASDAQ:INTC) in this illegal conduct. Both accused companies are denying all claims. Yet, they are willing to settle the case.

If you bought a P4 processor during the time period between 20^th November, 2000 and 31^st December, 2001, then you will receive $15 from the settlement site, which is operated by
Gilardi and Co. You will be eligible to receive $15 if you had bought a personal computer with Pentium 4 processor whose speed is less than 2GHz or the first-generation of “Wilamette” P4, between 1^st January, 2002 and 30^th June, 2002.

This lawsuit does not really matter. 15 years later, any small differences in the real and claimed performances of Intel Corp. (NASDAQ:INTC)’s chips will not have a huge impact on the company. The settlement of paying back the customers will also not have a huge impact on the companies as well.

The settlement, as mentioned above, is that customers will be paid $15 for each computer. It is not applicable to the buyers who had only bought a separate chip or processor. If you bought a separate processor and feel that you are hosed, then you can be a part of the suit, or you can separately sue the companies.

Plaintiffs have accused Intel Corp. (NASDAQ:INTC) of being fully aware that P4 cores were outperformed by P3 and AMD Athlon cores, according to the internal benchmarks as well. The suit alleges that the company had wrongfully used its influence in the industry to give Pentium 4 processors false performance scores. The company had secretly written such benchmark tests, that would ultimately yield higher scores for Pentium 4. The results of these tests were then advertised as independent, third-party test results.

Intel Corp. (NASDAQ:INTC) allegedly paid software companies to make changes in the benchmark programs so that the test results would inflate the performance of Pentium 4. The company went so far as to disable some features of the P III processor so that the performance of Pentium 4 would look much better.

The new benchmarks described above are the SysMark2001 and the WebMark2001. These benchmarks were written secretly by Intel Corp. (NASDAQ:INTC) according to the suit. The company had not specifically addressed these claims, but had, in general, denied all the claims by the plaintiffs. HP (NASDAQ:HPQ) followed suit.

If you are a buyer of Pentium 4, who wants their $15, then you don’t need to show a proof of buying a Pentium 4 during the described time duration. However, you have to give some evidence at the settlement site of buying P4, which will include the name of the retailer, location and an approximate date of purchase.

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