Intel Faces Potential Class-Action Lawsuit over Chip Bug Controversy • Hacker News Board

Re: Intel Faces Potential Class-Action Lawsuit over Chip Bug Controversy

#11

Post by ethbr1 » Thu, Aug 01, 2024, 5:31 PM UTC

Alupis wrote: post #10

tssge wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You have to look more far back than just the Pentium 4 days. Intel absolutely were some of the greatest innovators on the industry if you look at 70s, 80s and 90s. I would say they simply were the best, but dropped the ball at least when AMD64 became a thing. How the mighty have fallen... It's hard to overstate Intel's importance in regards to the modern CPU: they invented the microprocessor itself. (Though I'd like…

I guess it was innovation until competition got tough, then it was squash-mode, no matter how illegal or unsavory. During that era, can we honestly say Intel was still innovating in the CPU line? Have they innovated in CPU's recently? It seems not so much... Look at the Core series - moderately incremental improvements for nearly two decades now? Many of which have significant, unfixable design flaws. AMD got their a…

> AMD got their act together, and with significantly fewer resources ended up totally leap-frogging Intel in nearly all CPU metrics. How did this not happen at Intel after all these years?

AMD outsourced foundry issues to TSMC.

Re: Intel Faces Potential Class-Action Lawsuit over Chip Bug Controversy

#12

Post by janalsncm » Thu, Aug 01, 2024, 5:32 PM UTC

Dalewyn wrote: post #8

janalsncm wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What is the alternative? Intel gets to ship defective products with no consequences? I don’t like lawyers but I guarantee there are equally if not more suave Intel lawyers who would tell customers to shove it if they could.

You file warranty RMAs with Intel if you are adversely affected and they make you whole.

Yes, the article mentions that a class action only works if Intel isn’t honoring the warranty. The threat of a lawsuit is part of what incentivizes Intel to RMA instead of ignore.

Re: Intel Faces Potential Class-Action Lawsuit over Chip Bug Controversy

#13

Post by Alupis » Thu, Aug 01, 2024, 5:33 PM UTC

ethbr1 wrote: post #11

Alupis wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I guess it was innovation until competition got tough, then it was squash-mode, no matter how illegal or unsavory. During that era, can we honestly say Intel was still innovating in the CPU line? Have they innovated in CPU's recently? It seems not so much... Look at the Core series - moderately incremental improvements for nearly two decades now? Many of which have significant, unfixable design flaws. AMD got their a…

> AMD got their act together, and with significantly fewer resources ended up totally leap-frogging Intel in nearly all CPU metrics. How did this not happen at Intel after all these years? AMD outsourced foundry issues to TSMC.

And so could Intel if they wanted. Instead, they seem more interested in designing yet another socket and asking everyone to upgrade all of their hardware for a moderate performance bump...

Re: Intel Faces Potential Class-Action Lawsuit over Chip Bug Controversy

#14

Post by RiverCrochet » Thu, Aug 01, 2024, 5:35 PM UTC

tssge wrote: post #7

Alupis wrote: post #3

With Intel continuing to flounder, and given all of the issues with their CPU products over the past handful of years - one has to wonder if Intel ever was actually good at designing and manufacturing CPU's. Think back to the Pentium 4 and Athlon days... think about all the anti-competitive, illegal and/or unsavory business practices Intel employed during that era to gain dominance. They literally shut out AMD via il…

You have to look more far back than just the Pentium 4 days. Intel absolutely were some of the greatest innovators on the industry if you look at 70s, 80s and 90s. I would say they simply were the best, but dropped the ball at least when AMD64 became a thing. How the mighty have fallen... It's hard to overstate Intel's importance in regards to the modern CPU: they invented the microprocessor itself. (Though I'd like…

Intel developed and released the first single chip microprocessor, the 4-bit MCS 4004.

You had CPUs before that, but they were not single chips.

> like the Intel 8086.

You mean the 8051? It is a nice embedded chip, mostly because it has a lot of bit-level instructions and has separate execution and data address spaces if I'm remembering the details right.

> Of course the x86 instruction set comes from that very chip

It does come from the 8086, which I do believe was at least somewhat based on the even earlier 8080. I could be wrong though.

But yeah Intel did a lot. In the 70's though you had lots of semiconductor companies: Fairchild, Signetics, Motorola, MOS/CSG branching off of them. I really wonder what Intel would be if IBM selected a 68000 for the 5150 though.

Re: Intel Faces Potential Class-Action Lawsuit over Chip Bug Controversy

#15

Post by Dalewyn » Thu, Aug 01, 2024, 5:37 PM UTC

janalsncm wrote: post #12

Dalewyn wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You file warranty RMAs with Intel if you are adversely affected and they make you whole.

Yes, the article mentions that a class action only works if Intel isn’t honoring the warranty. The threat of a lawsuit is part of what incentivizes Intel to RMA instead of ignore.

Intel is already honoring most warranty claims as far as I'm aware, the only thing they've refused to do is issue a voluntary recall.

So this supposed lawsuit isn't even serving that dubious purpose.

As an aside, I have a 14700K. I've not filed for an RMA because it's been working perfectly fine for the better part of a year now.

Re: Intel Faces Potential Class-Action Lawsuit over Chip Bug Controversy

#16

Post by nubinetwork » Thu, Aug 01, 2024, 5:42 PM UTC

ethbr1 wrote: post #9

Alupis wrote: post #3

With Intel continuing to flounder, and given all of the issues with their CPU products over the past handful of years - one has to wonder if Intel ever was actually good at designing and manufacturing CPU's. Think back to the Pentium 4 and Athlon days... think about all the anti-competitive, illegal and/or unsavory business practices Intel employed during that era to gain dominance. They literally shut out AMD via il…

Intel's golden eras were the 8086, 2/3/486, Pentium I/Pro/II era (1978-1998) and the Core era (aka son of Pentium M) before they ran into process issues (2006-2015). Current execution stumbles do not diminish historical triumphs -- Pentium II and Nehalem were and are amazing.

The Pentium Pro was a turd if you weren't executing purely 32bit code.

Re: Intel Faces Potential Class-Action Lawsuit over Chip Bug Controversy

#17

Post by tssge » Thu, Aug 01, 2024, 5:48 PM UTC

Alupis wrote: post #10

tssge wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You have to look more far back than just the Pentium 4 days. Intel absolutely were some of the greatest innovators on the industry if you look at 70s, 80s and 90s. I would say they simply were the best, but dropped the ball at least when AMD64 became a thing. How the mighty have fallen... It's hard to overstate Intel's importance in regards to the modern CPU: they invented the microprocessor itself. (Though I'd like…

I guess it was innovation until competition got tough, then it was squash-mode, no matter how illegal or unsavory. During that era, can we honestly say Intel was still innovating in the CPU line? Have they innovated in CPU's recently? It seems not so much... Look at the Core series - moderately incremental improvements for nearly two decades now? Many of which have significant, unfixable design flaws. AMD got their a…

Yeah I totally agree if we consider Intel's innovation in the CPU space or lack thereof in the 21st century.

I have seen more innovation happen in the CPU space in the last 5 years than the 20 years prior to that. This has been thanks to AMD, Apple, ARM, TSMC etc; Intel has seemingly attempted to only slow down the innovation to keep cozy at the top spot.

Personal example: I rented an AMD machine last month and I seriously thought there was a bug with fastfetch when it showed the CPU having 5,7GHz clocks with 32 threads. I didn't believe such was possible. I had to double check because it felt so far fetched seeing such monstrous increase in clocks and cores, when upgrading from a few years old Intel machine to a new AMD one. That's innovation.

However to Intel's credit they have made major innovations in other areas, like peripherals, interconnects and so on. I am extremely grateful for Thunderbolt/USB4 existing today compared to the myriad of vendor specific docking connectors of the past.

>How did this not happen at Intel after all these years?

They replaced engineers with accountants after gaining dominant position on the market. Short term it gave more profits but long term most innovation was lost in the process.

Re: Intel Faces Potential Class-Action Lawsuit over Chip Bug Controversy

#18

Post by [deleted] » Thu, Aug 01, 2024, 5:49 PM UTC

Alupis wrote: post #3

With Intel continuing to flounder, and given all of the issues with their CPU products over the past handful of years - one has to wonder if Intel ever was actually good at designing and manufacturing CPU's. Think back to the Pentium 4 and Athlon days... think about all the anti-competitive, illegal and/or unsavory business practices Intel employed during that era to gain dominance. They literally shut out AMD via il…

[deleted]

Re: Intel Faces Potential Class-Action Lawsuit over Chip Bug Controversy

#19

Post by gruez » Thu, Aug 01, 2024, 5:50 PM UTC

Alupis wrote: post #13

ethbr1 wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> AMD got their act together, and with significantly fewer resources ended up totally leap-frogging Intel in nearly all CPU metrics. How did this not happen at Intel after all these years? AMD outsourced foundry issues to TSMC.

And so could Intel if they wanted. Instead, they seem more interested in designing yet another socket and asking everyone to upgrade all of their hardware for a moderate performance bump...

>Instead, they seem more interested in designing yet another socket and asking everyone to upgrade all of their hardware for a moderate performance bump...

Who's upgrading their cpus after 1-2 generations?

Re: Intel Faces Potential Class-Action Lawsuit over Chip Bug Controversy

#20

Post by segasaturn » Thu, Aug 01, 2024, 5:52 PM UTC

ethbr1 wrote: post #9

Alupis wrote: post #3

With Intel continuing to flounder, and given all of the issues with their CPU products over the past handful of years - one has to wonder if Intel ever was actually good at designing and manufacturing CPU's. Think back to the Pentium 4 and Athlon days... think about all the anti-competitive, illegal and/or unsavory business practices Intel employed during that era to gain dominance. They literally shut out AMD via il…

Intel's golden eras were the 8086, 2/3/486, Pentium I/Pro/II era (1978-1998) and the Core era (aka son of Pentium M) before they ran into process issues (2006-2015). Current execution stumbles do not diminish historical triumphs -- Pentium II and Nehalem were and are amazing.

I remember back when the choice was between Athlon 64 X2 and Core 2 Duo and it felt like with either choice you couldn't go wrong.