AMD sued over allegedly misleading Bulldozer core count

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This could get interesting.

http://arstechnica.co.uk/tech-polic...er-allegedly-misleading-bulldozer-core-count/
A class action lawsuit has been filed against chip-maker AMD for allegedly tricking consumers into buying its Bulldozer processors by overstating the number of cores contained in the chips. The suit claims that while Bulldozer was advertised as having eight cores, functionally it actually only had four.

AMD's multi-core Bulldozer chips use a unique design that combines the functions of what would normally be two discrete cores into a single package, which the company calls a module. Each module is identified as two separate cores in Windows, but the cores share a single floating point unit and instruction and execution resources. This is different from Intel's cores, which feature independent FPUs.

The suit claims that Bulldozer's design means its cores cannot work independently, and as a result, cannot perform eight instructions simultaneously and independently. This, the claim continues, results in performance degradation, and average consumers in the market for a CPU lack the technical expertise to understand the design of AMD's processors and trust the company to give accurate specifications regarding its CPUs.
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that's not going to go any where, Bulldozer is a true 8 core chip which can do 8 threads, but depending on what its doing, the FPU might get in the way, possibly when doing complex vector extensions.
 
So stop buying AMD 8 core's when a quad Intel and often dual core Intel can beat it up and down ;)

problem solved ;) ;)

But ya, this seems silly.. ..
 
AMD is the Democrat of tech. They can do no wrong. :p

I'm just waiting for the Hitler and laughing guy mocks lol.
 
So what's the qualifications of the person filing the lawsuit? I mean he claims the Bulldozer cores can't 'work independently, and as a result, cannot perform eight instructions simultaneously and independently.'
 
So what they're basically saying is AMD's 8 core processors are really 4 core processors with "hyper threading"? Interesting.
 
It was my understanding that every two bulldozer cores shared a single FPU?
 
This case is setting a bad precedent for the whole industry. It will have implications for Intel, ARM, IBM, Samsung.

Honestly, I thought AMD did a fantastic job explaining how the cores were setup, and even went so far as to heavily emphasize the whole "module" concept over core count.
 
Intel how, they state they are 4 cores with HT... the i7 for example does not claim 8 cores..I think this is soley and AMD issue....
 
It is not an issue at all. The problem lies with people understanding how the design works. The person that delivers the lawsuit does not know how it works and prolly thinks that a judge would not either.

There are several programs which validate 8 cores there is no way around this, that there is not strong case for this is obvious but the performance from 8 cores is something different which in gaming (OpenGL/DX11)won't show as opposed to lower number of cores which is not AMD problem to begin with....
 
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Pieter3dnow said:
It is not an issue at all. The problem lies with people understanding how the design works. The person that delivers the lawsuit does not know how it works and prolly thinks that a judge would not either.

There are several programs which validate 8 cores there is no way around this, that there is not strong case for this is obvious but the performance from 8 cores is something different which in gaming (OpenGL/DX11)won't show as opposed to lower number of cores which is not AMD problem to begin with....
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You think lawyers are that stupid to just go into court? They would have done their homework, and will try to show that point of view. And this isn't about just games! damn......

Its not about having 8 cores or not their suit is saying in certain (many) circumstances its not using all 8 cores, which is true it can't do it in certain circumstances (but not many), but so does Intel chips during certain operations Intel CPU's can't do its total amount of threads. There is backing to it this suit but it won't go to far.
 
When ever the CPU needs to do floating point operations, the FPU is used, and when doing something like AVX 256 bit instructions is when not all 8 cores can be utilized since 2 FPU's will be working on one instruction and this will cause the "bottleneck".
 
razor1 said:
You think lawyers are that stupid to just go into court? They would have done their homework, and will try to show that point of view.
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At this point in time the lawsuit has taken such a long time that you can bet it has nothing to do with the 8 cores functioning or not.

They could have brought this forward in the first few months of launch yet they are doing at the end of Bulldozer and before the launch of Zen.

You can not argue something which has only has certain aspects to consider rather then the whole package not delivering. And this is impossible to argue, you can try it but a judge would dismiss it fairly quickly if there is not such an amount of data where it does not function as advertised...

And how many court cases have been in the tech sector grasping at straws this one certainly has all the markings of it, hoping for a pay day , uncommon for lawyers you say ?
 
Pieter3dnow said:
At this point in time the lawsuit has taken such a long time that you can bet it has nothing to do with the 8 cores functioning or not.

They could have brought this forward in the first few months of launch yet they are doing at the end of Bulldozer and before the launch of Zen.

You can not argue something which has only has certain aspects to consider rather then the whole package not delivering. And this is impossible to argue, you can try it but a judge would dismiss it fairly quickly if there is not such an amount of data where it does not function as advertised...

And how many court cases have been in the tech sector grasping at straws this one certainly has all the markings of it, hoping for a pay day , uncommon for lawyers you say ?
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Err, yeah, I think you should go read the suit, it has a lot to do with if its 8 cores functioning or not. Statements like what you just made man come on, its in black and white what the suit is about.
:rolleyes:

Lawsuits like these the lawyers only get paid if they win or get a settlement, there is no money upfront so they wouldn't take it unless they looked into it.

Attorneys, unless they take a huge retainer fee won't take a case like this unless there is some possibility they can get something in return, and that possibility has to be fairly good (in their mind). So they would have consulted engineers to get the information they did to move forward with the lawsuit.
 
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Just because a Lawsuit is taken up doesnt mean its in the bag...
That type of assumption is beyond stupid.
 
razor1 said:
So they would have consulted engineers to get the information they did to move forward with the lawsuit.
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This part does not only sound silly it is down right stupid.

Lawsuits like these the lawyers only get paid if they win or get a settlement, there is no money upfront so they wouldn't take it unless they looked into it.
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You mean someone is not paying lawyers to do this lawsuit until they get a win or settlement, then there is no hope for them. Told you this would be dismissed more then likely ..
 
Pieter3dnow said:
This part does not only sound silly it is down right stupid.
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you better look at which law firm is doing this suit, they have been around the block, and have been in suing tech companies since silicon valley started. These guys aren't newbies.

You mean someone is not paying lawyers to do this lawsuit until they get a win or settlement, then there is no hope for them. Told you this would be dismissed more then likely ..
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Class action lawsuits are rarely funded by the people suing, I guess you just don't know this. There are many avenues to go through with a civil case such as this, the class action suit is just the beginning of it. They can branch it off to other personal suits depending on how the progress of the class action suit goes. Again talking about something you don't even what to understand actually probably above you head.

BTW I don't think the suit will get very far (as I stated in my first post in this thread), but I think this is more of a exploratory suit to gather more information on a further law suit, and there is a big reason why I state this.....
 
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Wow holy hell. What a good post. I thought AMD did a nice job at explaining it though. So I really would love to see what comes out of this.
 
ReCOde said:
Wow holy hell. What a good post. I thought AMD did a nice job at explaining it though. So I really would love to see what comes out of this.
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Indeed. However, one must take into consideration how many people bought a pre-built system, seeing only "8 core" without any explanation as to what that actually meant. If someone was sold a product, and stated a feature that in fact differs significantly from how the product was advertised, then someone has a good case for false advertisement.
 
If Nvidia can get away with 3.5Gb, i think AMD should be allowed to get away with false advertisement ( I don't know if it is actually false or not, just saying)
I mean come on, they are already in bad shape, why do you kick them when they are down.
Fucking lawyers.
 
alxlwson said:
Indeed. However, one must take into consideration how many people bought a pre-built system, seeing only "8 core" without any explanation as to what that actually meant. If someone was sold a product, and stated a feature that in fact differs significantly from how the product was advertised, then someone has a good case for false advertisement.
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Yeah, from the consumer protection standpoint, I could see them making an analogy along the lines of "a car has a v8 engine, but if you drive uphill, it can only use 4 cylinders....". Processor and computer architecture in general is much more complex than this, but it'll probably have to be dumbed down at some point for the legal system to process. I could see it going either way.
 
a3venom said:
If Nvidia can get away with 3.5Gb, i think AMD should be allowed to get away with false advertisement ( I don't know if it is actually false or not, just saying)
I mean come on, they are already in bad shape, why do you kick them when they are down.
Fucking lawyers.
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nV hasn't gotten away with what they did yet ;) there is more than one lawsuit against them for the gtx 970 and also in different districts. But any case the gtx 970 would be much easier to win or get something out of it than this one.
 
To quote myself from the other thread:

Red Falcon said:
Exactly, it is a true 8-core CPU, albeit with a CMT design, but still 8-cores nonetheless.
Each module consists of two integer cores, and a single 256-bit shared FPU, but it can split and act as two 128-bit FPUs for each integer core to function like any other SMT CPU.

This court case is nonsense and should be thrown out.
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Red Falcon said:
This isn't that difficult, the integer execution units are the real cores.
It doesn't even matter with the FPUs, as even though they are shared, they are each 256-bit and can operate as two independent 128-bit FPUs.

It has been this way since the early 1980s, so I'm not sure why you are saying there is no simple way of defining what a real core is, when there most certainly is.

CMT vs SMT:

500x1000px-LL-6c562208_AMD-Zen-vs-Steamroller-Block-Diagram-copy1.jpeg
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Red Falcon said:
Each FPU is a shared 256-bit FPU which can act as two independent 128-bit FPUs for each core.
It is a CMT design, not an SMT design, but it is still very much an 8-core CPU, you are correct.
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So yeah, the 8-core CPUs can utilze all 8-cores simultaneously.
I know, because I've done it in GNU/Linux and Windows many times when rendering, transcoding, and running VMs.

This lawsuit is just a quick attempt at a cash-grab, nothing more, nothing less.
 
razor1 said:
nV hasn't gotten away with what they did yet ;) there is more than one lawsuit against them for the gtx 970 and also in different districts. But any case the gtx 970 would be much easier to win or get something out of it than this one.
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That product was legitimately being falsified on the specifications, though, and was even proven so by GoldenTiger, thoroughly.
There was nothing falsified about any of the AMD FX-8XXX series CPUs, except for perhaps the transistor count back in 2011 when it was still in speculation over the final product.

While they might have weak integer cores, they are real cores nonetheless.
 
Red Falcon said:
This lawsuit is just a quick attempt at a cash-grab, nothing more, nothing less.
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This!

This is nothing more than some ambulance chasing lawyers looking for a quick and easy pay day with a target they see with deep pockets. Shit like this that makes me think trial lawyers like this are the scum of the earth. They do nothing the contributes to society in any way. Just run around trying to take other people's money with trumped up, inflated, bull shit claims.
 
I hope the suit is thrown out and those who are trying to sue end up knee deep in attonery fees.
 
Tony Dickey said:
Dickey is suing for damages, including statutory and punitive damages, litigation expenses, pre- and post-judgment interest, as well as other injunctive and declaratory relief as is deemed reasonable.
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So.. what kind of damages can you get from buying the CPU? Also, who is this Tony Dickey guy and what are his credentials?
This page seems to poke holes all over his suit.
 
I'm having a hard time seeing this one pan out either, but when retailers label their APU's as 'compute cores' instead of simply CPU and GPU cores, it gets a little murky.
 
CrazyRob said:
Yeah, from the consumer protection standpoint, I could see them making an analogy along the lines of "a car has a v8 engine, but if you drive uphill, it can only use 4 cylinders....". Processor and computer architecture in general is much more complex than this, but it'll probably have to be dumbed down at some point for the legal system to process. I could see it going either way.
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More like "if you're using A/C, two of the cylinders are used to drive the compressor". They're still being used, but just for something else.
 
from http://www.extremetech.com/extreme/...lse-bulldozer-chip-marketing-is-without-merit
Dickey’s lawsuit is wrong on other areas of fact as well. Bulldozer does share a single FPU block per work unit, but consumer workloads are rarely FPU-heavy. Each CPU module does contain the eight integer pipelines you’d expect in a typical dual-core conventional chip (4 ALU + 4 AGU per module). Dickey refers to Bulldozer as being unable to “perform eight calculations simultaneously,” but this is imprecise, inexact language that does not reflect the complexity of how a CPU executes code. Bulldozer is absolutely capable of executing eight threads simultaneously, and executing eight threads on an eight-core FX-8150 is faster than running that same chip in a four-thread, four-module mode. Bulldozer can decode 16 instructions per clock (not eight) and it can keep far more than eight instructions in flight simultaneously.
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and it finishes with :
AMD has, in a very real sense, been thoroughly punished for the CPU it brought to market in 2011 — and this lawsuit makes claims that don’t hold up to technical scrutiny.
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Then what is behind the class action lawsuit, because anyone that is buying a Bulldozer prolly know what the deal is. Whom would they approach to sign up for this nonsense, Still find it really odd timing.

They sold these to Cray and if anything that would put this lawsuit to rest.
 
I'm mixed on this one, if they had case it should have been brought earlier, but I think its too late now as now its common knowledge. I remember when bulldozer first came out it was really confusing as sites were mixing the terminology of modules and cores so it took me a bit of digging to actually find out that it as a 2 int units to 1 fpu. I can see some standing there because I really was confused at the beginning and I seem to remember 8 core being dominantly used with no clarification or correction by amd. That's just my memory of the release of bulldozer though.

Edit: I went back and looked at the release slides on hardocp and it's slides like these from amd where stuff got confusing:

http://www.hardocp.com/image.html?image=MTMxODAzNDY4M1ZacVZRTGlWdUxfMV8xMl9sLmpwZw==

It says 8 bulldozer cores, then says 2 cores per bulldozer module, kind of confusing since I guess they want you to infer that the fpu isn't a bulldozer core on that slide?

Then there is this slide that says shared fpu:

http://www.hardocp.com/image.html?image=MTMxODAzNDY4M1ZacVZRTGlWdUxfMV82X2wuanBn

So I can see where people got confused (even I did) early on, but its fairly common knowledge now.
 
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Then the issue is confusing not misleading. Problem here is that most users are not knowledgeable and can not be expected to understand completely how any part of their computer works. Most companies don't do this. Does any Automotive manufacturer explain how their car can tell the difference in using reg gas and e85? No they just tell you " you can use both". This lawsuit isn't a service or a pursuit of justice. But this unfortunately is an everyday occurrence in America.
 
Do you guys (in general) know how most of these class action suits work (actually any case criminal or civil)? And this is what the article doesn't take into consideration. They start off with a general wide net of assumptions that seemingly seems to encompass the issue, and then they drive down to specifics as the case progresses. The end results don't even need the mirror the original suit. Its all about fishing and what they can find. Prior to the case going to trail there is a discovery phase where each side looks into what each others know and information is shared. Then at that point the objective of the suit becomes more clear and defined.
 
This lawsuit is nothing but a frivolous lawsuit in attempt to get cash.

There is no legal definition of "core" to create a standing. Nor did the consumers have damages to require such a challenge.

If "core" had a legal definition, requiring some sort of ALU/FPU integration, then how could it be explained to prior processors who lacked on-die FPU?

Unlike statutory law where ex post facto code is unconstitutional, a court ruling is ex post facto. So a ruling in favor of the plaintiffs would create a paradox in the legal system, and also create an unnecessary case law.

This is a case where the plaintiff is trying to create definition where only the overall industry should make, or where it shouldn't be made at all.
 
If you're confused, you should ask questions. If you're misled, you may not be confused, so questions may not be asked. If you weren't trying to be misleading, and nobody asked questions, would you know that your materials needed to be cleaned up? If these were technical documents, not really meant for general consumption, are AMD really obligated to clean them up even if they lead to confusion in consumers minds? Were they not meant to be accompanied by a speaker, in the first place?
 
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