The class action lawsuit, originally started back in November of 2015, was filed regarding claims of AMD ‘misrepresenting’ the number of cores in its ‘eight-core’ FX processors of the Bulldozer and Piledriver generations. The idea is that customers didn’t understand AMD’s definition of CPU cores in its Bulldozer architecture, and thought they were getting a processor with eight independent cores, not the shared Bulldozer architecture which bottlenecked performance.
The timeline of the case is going to be decided on February 5, which might take some of the wind out of AMD’s sails as it launches its new Radeon VII graphics card just a couple of days later. The options on the table are going to be whether AMD settles with the plaintiffs, potentially costing a lot of cash, or goes to jury trial, which could cost it significantly more if AMD loses.