Deceptive Advertising Class Action Lawsuit Filed Against AMD

A class action lawsuit was filed against Advanced Micro Devices (AMD), a company that makes computer processors, alleging that AMD misled consumers by marketing its “Bulldozer” lines of computer processing units (CPUs) as having “8 cores,” because the processors in fact only have four “cores.”

The AMD class action lawsuit contends that “AMD misled consumers who desired a processor with eight cores by advertising inflated core-counts of its Bulldozer CPUs. As a result, tens of thousands of consumers have been deceived by AMD’s marketing and purchased Bulldozer processors believing AMD’s representations about its core-count to be true.”

AMD is the second largest manufacturer of CPUs, which are one of the primary components of computers. AMD is the primary competitor of Intel, and both companies are constantly trying to increase the speed of their processors. For the past several years, both companies have been combining multiple processors, or “cores,” into one CPU in order for them to process more information. In 2011, AMD released its “Bulldozer” brand of CPU, and marketed it as “the first-ever eight-core desktop processor,” according to the class action lawsuit.

The AMD class action lawsuit alleges that AMD’s “Bulldozer” CPUs do not, in fact, have eight “cores.” Instead, AMD’s CPUs have “modules,” which have some of the components of two different cores, but are not able to process independent information simultaneously. The complaint states that “AMD’s decision to provide each module with only some (but not all) of the components of two cores means a module contains only one complete core, not two as advertised.”

Plaintiff Tony Dickey says he purchased two AMD “Bulldozer” CPUs in March of 2015, based in part on the advertising that the chips had “8 cores.” According to the class action lawsuit, AMD’s alleged misrepresentations were “material to to his purchase: without them, Plaintiff would either have not purchased the [AMD] chips or he would have paid less for them.”

The AMD class action lawsuit states that Dickey’s AMD chips “did not perform as well as a CPU with the same clock speed but with eight true cores.” The complaint also points to other technical reviews of the AMD chips, which found that the “8 core” CPUs were slower than a competitor’s four core processor, and even AMD’s older six core CPU.

The AMD “8 core” class action lawsuit seeks to recover damages for “[a]ll individuals in the United States that purchased any of the following AMD Bulldozer processors: FX-8120, FX-8150, FX-8320, FX-8350, FX-8370, FX-9370, and FX-9590.”

According to the class action lawsuit, AMD should pay consumers the purchase price of their Bulldozer CPU, which was typically between $150 and $300, “or, at least, the difference between what they paid for the processors and their actual value.”

In addition, the class action lawsuit seeks to stop AMD from advertising its “8 core” CPUs, and to remain truthful in its future advertising.

Tony Dickey is represented by Samuel M. Lasser, Rafey S. Balabanian, Alexander T.H. Nguyen, and Amir C. Missaghi of Edelson, PC.