Re: "opt-out was probably the best choice"
They are not including the IP address.
No, but they are sending the data to their servers over the internet, so the addressing information will be available from the received IP packet headers. It wouldn't be rocket science to associate the data with an IP address if they wanted.
I wouldn't say that an IP address should count as personally identifiable data, though, there are enough dynamic IPs and enough NATted shared IPs to make it difficult to associate an individual user with a particular hardware fingerprint.
What worries me more is that the data collected will enable them to discover which CPU types (for example) are only being used by a tiny fraction of the userbase, and prematurely discontinue support for those chips in order to make use of some new feature nobody has ever heard of in the very latest.
Biting the hand that feeds IT
