Proposed settlement has AMD paying customers of 8-core FX CPUs up to $300

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Only if you lived in California at the time of purchase or bought it directly from AMD.

(Image credit: AMD)

A proposed class action settlement over AMD's outdated Bulldozer and Piledriver CPUs is now accepting claims. Those who qualify could receive up to $300, though there are some caveats to discuss.

The biggest one is the place of purchase. Per the settlement's terms, only customers who purchased certain CPU models "while residing in California or after visiting AMD.com" are eligible. 

This settlement agreement came to light in August. The terms are the same, only now it's progressed to the point where affected customers can actually file a claim. It was previously estimated the payout would amount to "more than $35 per purchased chip," a rather measly amount (on the low end) considering eligible CPUs all launched north of $200.

The actual amount to be refunded to each person will depend on how many people file an eligible claim. 

"Those who file claims will be eligible to receive a pro rata portion of the Settlement Fund, up to $300 per CPU purchased. If you do not have proof of your purchase(s), you may not make a claim for any more than five 5 CPUs," the settlement states.

In total, AMD has agreed to pay out $12.1 million, regardless of how many people participate. Lawyer fees and other costs will whittle down the amount that actually gets doled out to participants.

All of the affected CPUs are 8-core parts branded as FX models. They include:

  • AMD FX-9590 (Piledriver)
  • AMD FX-9370 (Piledriver)
  • AMD FX-8370 (Piledriver)
  • AMD FX-8350 (Piledriver)
  • AMD FX-8320 (Piledriver)
  • AMD FX-8150 (Bulldozer)
  • AMD FX-8120 (Bulldozer)

The, uh, core issue that led to the class action is AMD having labeled and advertised the affected models as 8-core CPUs. However, the underlying architectures used dual-core modules, each containing two independent ALUs and a shared FPU—the cores did not operate independently of one another.

Follow this link if you want to file a claim.

Paul Lilly
Paul Lilly

Paul has been playing PC games and raking his knuckles on computer hardware since the Commodore 64. He does not have any tattoos, but thinks it would be cool to get one that reads LOAD"*",8,1. In his off time, he rides motorcycles and wrestles alligators (only one of those is true).