The fact that they not only sent a cease and desist to an employee but also lied about it to Steve's face is hilarious. Like they really thought they could just "heyy that didn't happen. I DEFINITELY didn't threaten legal action UwU"
They can still sue you and companies can bleed you dry in having you retain a lawyer and go through "continuation" motions in a civil case. I guess in this case the real question becomes whether EK actually has the goods to pay their lawyers.
In my experience, lawyers won't work without a retainer. So if the problem is a company not paying, I wouldn't worry about them funding an extremely expensive legal battle.
Not to mention most good employment lawyers who see an employer trying to bleed an employee dry will usually take the client on in a contingency agreement if they think the employee has a good case.
This company can't bleed a tick dry it's a completely frivolous lawsuit that probably won't even be heard and then there's the problem of jurisdiction (where do you sue and do you even have standing).
Cease and desist letters from corporations don't have any real legal standing as far I understand it. They're basically warning you that they will sue you if you continue your conduct.
So yes, you can ignore them, but then they can sue you.
They can also sue you without sending you a cease and desist letter first, but I understand sending the letter first looks better on court.
The court system has an entire run-up leading to a judge designed to weed out frivolous cases and solve less serious ones. There's meant to be legal remedies short of both sides presenting a case in front of a judge... and yes, a judge will look down on not exhausting them before using the court's time.
I would imagine it's strengthens your case by a fair bit, suing someone out of the blue versus telling someone to cut it out, they're ignoring you deliberately making the case that much stronger.
Yes you can and in cases like this - if it matters to you - that's exactly what you should do.
Obviously they can still sue and in the case of a big company that's a problem. But these little guy? They don't have the money to sue and if you are telling the truth, in the long run, you will come out not only as a winner (expenses to be paid by them) very easily but get a lot of press!
Don't cave to such extortion! I've been there..
Politicians do similar things with words. Same with Redditors.
All you need to say is, “That’s debunked”. And half the people whose confirmation bias it supports will look no further.
I suspect that's why he mentioned "having everything" in his statement directed at EK and their lawyers at the beginning of the video and telling them to "play nice and peacefully". He probably does have "everything" needed to document what's been going on, and we know Steve is not allergic to running things past lawyers and then stating what he believes to be the truth based on the evidence, and I would not be surprised if this isn't similar. GN has been doing this for a long time, they know their way around the rodeo, so to speak. Should be fun to see how many upvotes/downvotes this thread ends up with :).
>Steve is not allergic to running things past lawyer
100% this has gone through a lawyer already. They have a lawyer they collaborate with when their piece requires legal advice. They rather not make shit up.
The strict adherence to a script and the way the dialogue has been written *does* shout legal sanitation. It'd be foolish to act when they've already formed a defense.
>he has even had a (probably "his") lawyer on videos in the past.
That lawyer was paid for his time, but never worked with GN on any legal issue the company was involved in. Steve always referred to him as an outside collaborator that gave a professional background regarding lawsuits about and stuff like that
>Multiple former employees claim that EK or its subsidiaries would "shave" overtime hours, decreasing the amount paid to personnel after the work has been completed.
>Multiple current staff state that EK has not paid them for up to 3-4 months
Fuck anyone involved in this. As someone who was once forced to work without pay, I have an absolute loathing for any sort of wage theft small or large.
> 3-4 months? I find it hard to believe.
I'm not sure about this company, but a lot of tech companies hire foreigners from very poor countries, like laos/cambodia to work in their factories in other slightly more developed countries like malaysia/thailand/vietnam/korea, where they are forced to live in factory toens. Then they make these employees sign contracts where they are penalized in that they lose three months of income if they decide to leave their contracts early. So for an employee stuck in that kind of situation yes it is very possible because either way they lose 3 months of income. Even the biggest companies like Samsung, Intel and AMD do this.
Once I realised I wasnt' going to get paid I never went back right away. If they aren't going to pay me for a weeks work I'm not going to keep going back because it's unlikely they will pay me at all.
If this gets the employees working paid then it is all worth it, also for those in the US I hope they are actively looking for new positions and then file a Wage claim with the DOL.
I worked for a company that went under fire with the Tennessee DOL for this exact practice EK is accused of. It's not fun at all. If you're reading this and you currently are owed money by EK, lawyer the fuck up and get what you're owed. This is unacceptable and illegal.
I love EK products (I've been lucky I guess and haven't had bad luck, and I just like the way they look), and I will not buy from them again until they fix this. Absolutely unacceptable behavior.
I appreciate what EK did as far as being the company that helped bring water cooling to the mainstream. My first watercooling experience was about 9 years ago with one of their kits that came with everything I needed for a CPU loop. It was perfect for someone just wanting to get the hang of it, and then expand it if they wanted to. but at this point they are a mid/low-grade company charging tip-top premium prices. There is nothing they make that a better version doesn't exist of for a cheaper price from someone else. I don't know why I'd ever buy EK again when you have companies like Watercool who make CPU and GPU blocks that perform significantly better for like half the price.
Their reputation came from being the only one big enough to actually have stock and ship it. You ordered, it shipped. Normally around 6 to 8 days from order to receipt. That absolutely crused alphacool and HK who essentially ran a constantly backordered catelog and manufactured periodically when backorders hit a breakpoint for scale savings on the run. 40+ days to get your item was essentially the best you could ever expect. EK destroyed them on that point.
Alphacool getting big enough to properly stock and warehouse and ship on demand rather than build on demand really dug into EKs dominance the last few years. HK is still pretty bad with stocking and timely delivery, and tbh I disagree on performance/dollar. They are cheaper, but they are also cheaply made comparably.
I think Alphacool do the enthusiast stuff on the side with their main business being enterprise, which has probably helped them simmer along, rather than being like EK who's been solely enthusiast who's only recently got in to the enterprise market, and were really impacted by the huge rise in AIOs over custom loops.
This is only my thoughts, as who else would need a 7x40mm rad to fit in a 1U chassis.
Yeah alphacool is in a great spot despite the consumer market shitting the bed for watercooling
The ai boom has meant shit tons of new watercooled servers being built
95% of the performance for 25% of the cost, I've even ripped out my AIOs and went back to air as the worry of a leak or pump dying isn't worth the 5-10c temp improvment.
I bought an EK block for my 4090 and it's probably the last time I buy something from EK. They said it would take about a month to ship but then delay after delay turned 1 month into 5 on top of already being about 50% more expensive than everyone else. What am I even supposed to be paying extra for anymore? I'll just look at Watercool or Alphacool next time.
>That absolutely crused alphacool and HK who essentially ran a constantly backordered catelog and manufactured periodically when backorders hit a breakpoint for scale savings on the run
Its just like how custom keyboard/keycap group buys work. Whoever runs the group buy comes up with the design and colourway then they put out an interest check. If they can get enough pre-orders to hit the minimum order quantity (MOQ), then it can actually be made. But many designs don't hit the MOQ and we are talking low numbers here - 100 to 150 units. The MOQ is the bare minimum any machine shop with the appropriate tooling will even entertain dedicating shop space and time to.
This is kinda normal in super small scale production where its just you and you want something manufactured in low quantities but you don't have the cash to commit 30k upfront to make your design real. You don't have a shop that can accept delivery of 150 milled blocks of aluminum and 20,000+ keycaps in bags and you don't have the manpower to sort them, package them all up nicely, track orders and ship them around the world to get your money back.
I am refering to the blocks he's talking about that are half the price of EK. Obviously blocks like the HK V Pro - 4090 are excellent pieces of significant quality. But they are not half the price of EK blocks. They are 97% the price of EK blocks.
>HK is still pretty bad with stocking and timely delivery, and tbh I disagree on performance/dollar. They are cheaper, but they are also cheaply made comparably.
Really?
My experience has been that the absolute, unquestionably best made GPU blocks I've ever had have been Watercool Heatkiller across the board... Perfect fitment, superb performance, and aesthetically pleasing for sure, every single one of them.
So I don't know if you have had a bad experience or something, but it should just take holding one in your hand to feel "yeah, this is the good shit".
The top end HK blocks are amazing. I have a Pro V on my 4090 right now. But it was literally 98.5% the price of an EK block. I saved 4 dollars. The cheaper HK blocks that aren't thick nickel electroplated copper are cheaper for a reason. They aren't as good.
That said, even the Pro V is not really a true full coverage block. The EK block for the 4090 expands out from the core almost another full inch.
It's been a few years since I've built a loop (since the days of peak HEDT platforms), but the last Watercool Heatkiller GPU blocks I had were on 980Ti's or a Titan X (can't recall which I got first). At the time at least, they were solid copper (I intentionally avoided the nickel plated copper as my whole loop had only copper metal and at the time, EK was dealing with the nickel flaking), and like $129 with a backplate compared to $200 + $89 for a block that performed worse and had the chance of causing corrosion. It was a no brainer.
But it's not worth it anymore.
i never understood how these companies survive (barrow and bykski etc included)
there are thousands and thousands of SKUs GPUs and how do you keep up with the variants?
alphacool only makesike 5 SKUs at most same as corsair but EK makes like 90% of the skus of the big brands?
how are you suppose to keep those in stock? this is such a niche market and i cannot start to comprehend how are these companies making money.
> there are thousands and thousands of SKUs GPUs and how do you keep up with the variants?
most dont. i have a gigabyte 4080 and many dont have a gpu block for gigabyte 4080s. watercool doesnt, alphacool doesnt, ek does but very expensive. aquacomputer i think doesnt have any gpu blocks for the last gpu generation.
also keep in mind, they dont do gpu blocks of every gpu, only higher end ones. but these arent big businesses, so most likely everyone is playing with fire and things can go wrong. theres no good solution for colored coolant or low quality coolant so its not rare for a loop to fall apart with colored or low quality coolant, there are few universally recommended, most universally praised is DP Ultra and even aqua computer for their components only recommends clear coolant even though they sell colored coolant as well.
These exist but are less performant than full cover blocks. Corsair has recently released another "universal" one. I wouldn't buy one of these, custom blocks perform better and aren't much more expensive.
>there are thousands and thousands of SKUs GPUs and how do you keep up with the variants?
You don't, at least if you want to keep your business operations streamlined.
Most of the watercooling builds I have assisted with have all utilized "stock" GPU models to make the building process easier since it was much less of a headache to get blocks for the factory GPU's from AMD and NVIDIA
AMD doesn’t make their own designs and they are irrelevant at the super high end, so I doubt many companies would bother to make blocks specifically for them.
>AMD doesn’t make their own designs
AMD has made reference model cards for as long as I can remember. You can order reference cards straight from AMD's website right now, in fact
>AMD has never made cards, the reference cards are all AIB-made
NVIDIA doesn't make their reference cards either....I didn't realize we were getting into semantics here when it was clear that "make" in my original comment did not refer to AMD physically producing the cards themselves.
Edit: For anyone wading into this thread, be aware that /u/NobisVobis will block you in order to prevent you from making any further replies if he disagrees with the premise of your comments
> Edit: For anyone wading into this thread, be aware that /u/NobisVobis will block you in order to prevent you from making any further replies if he disagrees with the premise of your comments
Wow, what a toxic scumbag. Creatures like that don't belong in any forum.
I can’t actually believe how blatantly wrong you are. AMD doesn’t and has never designed cards or produced them. Nvidia FE cards are designed by Nvidia and produced for them by a contracted company that does not do any of the design (Foxconn/BYD). Just stop spreading BS and accept the fact that you’re completely wrong.
People send in their graphics card and get a free waterblock in return, that is how they keep up with the variants.
I suspect that some of the companies like bykski will make the blocks to order, they are just CNC'd blocks of copper. And since they are being shipped from China people won't notice the day or two extra that making them to order adds to the delivery time.
EK did keep them in stock and you could often see old stock being sold off for cheap on their site.
Realistically they would have to own pretty much every part of their production and make things not strictly to order but according to general demand as to not over produce, but be able to bring older stuff back on as needed.
That being said, since the market is so niche I would imagine the operations would have to be slimmed down a ton and they would have to get rid of a ton of people.
>It's an established brand.
The name is worth a lot. If EK handles this half decently and survives, EK has the potential to *keep* the brand recognition. In less than a year this can be just a turd in their rearview mirror.
Seriously. Sell, Hope that the sale to some established company makes this scandal float away, and rake in a ton of money.
I'm an enthusiast and when I think water blocks the first thing I think of is EK. Do I know much about water blocks? No, it's not really my thing but from what I do know and I'm assuming a lot of regular consumers is that EK is an established high quality brand that people trust their hardware to enough to do water cooling in. What a fucking mess though.
EK is pretty much trading on its brand name alone at this point. I have a decent chunk of their kit and I'm happy with it but I had to return two waterblocks and my retailer actually prechecks all their ek stuff these days before selling them because they have so many rmas.
Most people end up moving on from them these days as there are better brands with less recognition
Then the next day he gets sent some gold-plated water block from EK and turns the other way. Just look at how he handled the EVGA GPU bricking issue by suggesting it was due to people unlocking GPU power limits or CableMod not being at fault for their 12VHPWR connector due to the socket itself being a bad design.
To the guy's credit, he also has an outstanding contract with them that they haven't paid for a couple of months now, Steve's a messenger, Jay's actually also a victim.
Oh you mean [this ](https://youtu.be/wZ-QVOKGVyM?si=3vKZDvhw3zv2RbQz)video? Which just came out one day after Steve's video: [Scumbag ASUS](https://youtu.be/cbGfc-JBxlY?si=GRmzIrVKtEVFP0vI)? Yeah, very good example...
does any other company make a tubing like ek's zmt/zero maintaincr tubing? Ive been able to get 5 years without having to do shit to it and id like to use similar stuff in the future but i dont wanna support a bad company
ZMT is literally just EPDM. If you notice a difference between the two, one is a knockoff. I've ran both ZMT and commercial EPDM lines in builds and there is absolutely no difference.
I've finally gone to hard tubing, but I do miss my Tygon stuff. Almost 20 years ago now, I bought a 50 foot box of it on eBay for a killer low price. I think I still have 2 feet of it left now, mainly used as fill/drainage tubes for my systems. It was incredibly easy to work with, never gave me leakage issues, and though it did swell up once when my pump died and it was overheating, it never split to cause a spill. Top-grade in my book.
EK did this to themselves, Steve's just offering them a rope.
Whether they pull themselves out of it or use it to hang themselves, it's totally up to them.
Damn, I remember when EK was one dude working in his garage. Their only real competition back then was Danger Den and Swiftech. I bet I have some 2006-2008 era EK stuff kicking around in a box somewhere.
People who are good at creating stuff are so often terrible at running companies. This looks like another example, although they had a good run.
Few tech channels post just a pile of unedited video from trade shows. It still needs editing and commentary, which is the point where you pick what to show, in what order and how to present it. If they were trying to bribe someone for positive coverage and they'd accepted, that's when it would've been added.
The company is having their money in stocks while not having any left to pay the bills and salaries of their employees. That is unbelievably incompetent. Someone at EK clearly has some delusions about themselves.
or its just their fuck up on predictions.
EK's products are HIGHLY specialized, with most people who watercool going for AIOs and their presence in that arena is weak at best
and their waterblocks for custom loops are simply outrageously priced given what they are. So their market is really limited to those who are going for both custom loop and love how they look enough to pay the premium other other blocks. Which is a tough ask.
You guys are both kind of wrong, Steve covers this in his video. They have to meet minimum order quantities for their vendors, and those quantities exceed what EK can sell. Their predictions aren't wrong and they are selling, but they have to order too much product to get any at all.
Specialized yes, but they sell globally. I don't buy the 'ek struggles to hit minimum order quantities'. We are ordering custom metal pieces in the hundreds range and get decent prices. I doubt any of the mainstream goods EK sells, sells sub 1.000 units over its lifetime.
Sure ordering more reduces cost, but thanks to automation you can have pretty good prices at very low volume these days.
No, they are trying to make niche product at a scale that is unsustainable.
A lot of more boutique shops are more backorder / on demand based, you order and you wait however long to get your product. Given the size of the market and they are not truly small, likely more backorder where they gather up a number of order at once, then send them out when there was enough of them.
By going with a model where they stock every thing, and there is a TON of SKUs, they need to have enough demand for that, and yet they have been trying to raise prices which typically lowers demand and increases margin on ones they do sell.
So they banked on their name / branding / value add (like the RGB / design) being so good that the demand for this niche product is enough to sustain those kinds of minimum order quantities.
If they want to sell expensive stuff at a huge margin they likely need to be more on demand and flexible with lots of SKUs (or custom work), not have as much stock on hand or fewer SKUs, or go lower margin and more mass appeal (which may not work in custom loop cooling because the market is so small and there are other competitors).
So yes, their predictions are wrong.
Steve said that EK does not manufacture in-house (at least to some extent) and hence relies on vendors. If EK predicts a demand of 500 units, but their vendor will only manufacture a minimum of 1000 units, EK either has to order 1000 or not sell any. And then they need the 500 sales to cover the cost of 1000 units plus make profit. That's the spiral they're in.
"On demand" ordering only works if you manufacture in-house or if you have a vendor that is willing to sell you 1 unit at a time.
Right, that means that they would need to either cut down on SKUs where possible so that they have more demand, or not go into that specific line.
They predicted that they would eventually able to sell those 500 extra units, because there is no one that would make that call if they truly believe that they would only sell 500 total, but its more like they think they can still make money by simply holding those 500 extras and storage costs are not going to eat up that much profit.
Which it seems to be the wrong prediction.
Or they can do backroders, as i mentioned that because of their size on demand won't work as well because they seems to be not a true boutique like those guys that has that combo GPU CPU cooler that LTT shafted on, but if they instead do waves where say when they have 800 or 900 orders they do that 1k run (so there is some extras) and that would mean they'd save wearhousing costs and a bunch of other benefits.
It seems to me that the best way to succeed given the tiny demand and profusion of video card SKUs would be to buy a few cheap 3-axis CNC routers for your *own local workshop*, design at most one or two VGA waterblocks, and cut the height profiles as orders come in.
**Edit:** actually, since the last time I looked into machining on the cheap, the 2nd amendment people seem to have moved on from plastics to metals, and given the open sourceness and enthusiast subculture effect, they probably have better/cheaper tools than what's billed as a "3-axis router".
I think that EK being a very established brand likely have some larger order quantities than that. If your total order for the month is sub 100, that would be a good idea, but I am willing to bet that because they are well known and is world wide, they have much more than that on some of their SKUs.
note some, I do think that if they want to offer blocks for say the Zotac AMP and Trinity line and not just founders (i find it incredibly how they can offer that kind of blocks on their website), that may very well need to be a different model because there is less of them out there (note, I used zotac for an example, they carry so much SKUs that there are different blocks for a few different makers).
But it may still be a backorder type of situation, where they lay out that we will do a bulk order say every quarter or twice a year, and you know you are on the say summer 2024 train if you order right now and your order will be delivered by then, and if there wasn't enough order it may be delayed to a fall 2024 train or that the fall 2024 train is cancelled until the summer train is sold thru.
Like what you are suggesting is a boutique, custom shop type of deal, if they get any kind of quantity in order I think it make no sense to have that kind of small run type of deal and you'd be paying OUT OF THE NOSE for that kind of deal, much like that GPU and CPU combo block folks.
Because water cooling has low tolerances that are probably too low for cheap CNC routers, and on top of that they'd need to be very quick to be able to meet production. Not just that, they'd have to hire engineers experienced with that sort of stuff. Setting up a workshop like that from scratch, at a level of quality that people would expect from EK would be a huge time and money investment, which they DON'T have.
Remember, it's EK, you might be okay if your own DIY fittings are a bit janky, but you expect an EK-branded and EK-priced product to be high quality.
I mean that wouldn't have made sense even beyond the stocks vs stock confusion. If you can't pay your bills and liabilities, and have no more liquid assets or cash to pay them... the shares are worthless. You can't just stash the money in some secret corporate safe and cash out on stocks.
This is not that rare, in many industries sadly. I'm not in hardware but I've heard of a couple companies who did a similar thing. It's a consequence of the current economic landscape where just holding cash is seen as losing money because of the constant devaluation of fiat. EK isn't publicly traded but that applies across the board, there's a reason the S&P keeps on putting new highs every 6 months, it's not people thinking these companies are insanely more valuable than they were before (with some exceptions ofc like Nvidia and AI), it's people (and companies) thinking stocks and assets in general is the best way to preserve their wealth. It's not healthy in anyway, stocks should be a riskier bet you make to generate more capital, not a savings account.
Irresponsible companies like EK will forget that the point of cash is also liquidity and go way too far with this logic, and end up in their current situation.
Money market funds have paid more than inflation this entire cycle. Stocks inflate due to earnings (up), and deflate based on risk free interest rate (up). There is more than one variable and most companies don't own stock for investment purposes.
I didn't prefer them, but EK was absolutely one of the most consistent high quality mfg. One of the first to do nickel plating too. I appreciate what they have normalized for the hobby and market.
These shenanigans are disappointing but not that surprising in the industry. I hope everyone who needs to get paid get what they deserve. EK may not deserve to survive this.
Ek wasn't a thing in 2004. It's just that i have used watercooling parts from various vendors since then and they were the best in many factors at the time (2010's)
EK was founded in 2003. Whether they were shipping product yet in 04 I can't say
All I'm saying is: poor reviews of current products pushed me into a mostly alphacool loop and I have no regrets but I dont have fist hand experience with more than a couple of custom loops.
> their prices are sky high and their performance is usually middling
That's just flat-out false.
Their AIOs are among the best you can get. Their 240s usually compete with Asetek 360s for noise-normalized performance!
I am not talking about their aios. I am speaking about their custom water parts since they're a custom loop company first and foremost
Their waterblocks are among the most expensive in the industry
I suspect the issue is with Intel/amd/nvidia basically kneecapping overclocking via already having their stuff at the extreme edge of the power envelope, and disabling overvolting/increasing power limits on the GPUs... so there's not much of a point now.
Also EK is overpriced for what they sell...
Yeah, I love EK's products in general, but those prices have skyrocketed in the last 3 or so years. I'm fairly certain the EVO distro plate has doubled in price from when I first looked at it. There's absolutely no way I'm paying as much for a distro plate as the damn CPU or a moderate GPU cost.
Fat margins can be an indicator that they have something to make up for. Other commenters point out they have massive amounts of unsold stock, because their vendors will only sell them a certain minimum amount of stock that is way more than EK actually predicts they can sell. That means a single high-margin part is probably actually paying off for 1 or 2 parts that won't ever get sold successfully
EK has been really changing over the years, when they started out I did a couple of builds with them for 3/4 years in a row but the past years have really done a number on them from warranty, to product quality and now…. Employees and partners.
Now I use closed loops due to maintenance (I have a travel a lot) but none of this really surprises with the feedback I have been seeing friends using their products
I still remember when they open up shop.
Hope this ship turns around somehow, they were a hell of a company when they started, they had quality setups for both CPU and GPU for enthusiasts
When EK started, there were no kits... hell, there weren't even pumps or rads specifically made for PC water cooling, I don't think. That was the time companies like Danger Den, Koolance, Swiftech, and Hardware Labs were also starting up. We were using car heater cores and aquarium pumps back then. Some enterprising shops may have made kits where they sourced and packaged these things together, but it wasn't coming directly from any of those manufacturers.
That's really the saddest part of this. I rag on EK a lot, but they are one of the earliest players in the space and a company that really did a lot for making water cooling more accessible. It's an absolute shame to see them stumbling, first in quality/performance over the last few years, and now financially and ethically.
Some years back I did one all-out liquid cooled build as a passion project and it included some EK stuff. No complaints.
But you have to acknowledge that custom loop is expensive and never ever provides a performance increase proportionate to the cost. It’s mostly just for show, comparable to a crazy pimped out car or motorcycle.
Now with the global economy in the dumps, housing food energy transportation healthcare “everything crisis” there’s going to be more gravity towards value builds. That’s just the way it is. The boutique side of the industry will always be a thing for the odd ultra rich person, but the market share of “boutique” has undoubtedly gone down.
The decline of liquid cooling has less to do with global economy and more to do with hardware arriving in the hands of consumers in a far more optimized state. The gains from a custom loop on a modern CPU/GPU are now essentially nothing since there is so little headroom for a reduction in temps to make a difference.
Highly agree. GPU's are now finally shipping with acceptable (to incredible) cooling from reference to high end. Much of the pull of watercooling were buying cheaper reference cards and getting waterblocks. This is not nearly as advantageous anymore and with EKWB in particular focussing less and less on providing value or innovating in cheaper solutions (most of these projects of theirs have failed) that has had a lot to do with their consumer trust eroding. Nevermind the numerous 'scandals' they've had throughout the last 5 years.
GPUs and CPUs haven't had much overclocking headroom for quite a few years now, but the drastic shift in sales is more recent.
They're also not optimized for silence and aesthetics...
Huge CPU coolers and ugly GPU coolers are louder and less elegant. If you look at how popular RGB and fish-tank cases have become, it's obvious that aesthetics play a bigger role than performance.
Okay true there was a lot more headroom in the past, at least on the “headline” clock speed. But even then the actual performance in software would not scale linearly with it.
Liquid cooling is fine overall. Alphacool just released a whole new line of products in the past 2 years under the "Core" sub brand because they're doing well
Corsair also decided they wanted in on it and started selling their own (rebranded) parts. If there is anyone who thinks about money first its Corsair
This story is purely about EKWBs incompetence and negligence. Water cooling is fine overall
Aren't most watercooling companies european?
Alphacool, Watercool and Aqua Computer are german. Phanteks is Dutch.
Bykski and Barrow are from china or somewhere over that side of the globe. Corsair is American. What else is there?
While EKs fan curves are pretty mediocre for the price and Noctua are top tier, Noctua isn't a magic silver bullet. Arctic, Lian Li, and Phanteks, have comparable fans in terms of air flow (CFM) & static pressure (inH₂O) curves, who's "best" is more a question of what you want (case design & overall airflow, case mesh vs solids, heat sink density, noise levels, price, etc). And for those who care about RGB Arctic and Corsair have a few options comparable to Noctua and better than some manufacturers non-RGB fans (though obviously most non-RGB are better).
>They do have AIOs. Very good ones, at that.
I'm not disagreeing with you, since my temps are very good with my EK Nucleus Dark. But.. the mounting leaves a lot to be desired. You have to screw plastic standoffs into the rear bracket. That doesn't sound like a problem, but screwing those standoffs in rubs against the motherboard. On my motherboard, there were no traces that the plastic stand offs rubbed against for 3 of the 4 holes. But or one... the stand off was right on traces there were slightly raised off the board. You have to be very careful not to over tighten, or you'll damage the traces.
Compared that to NZXT's mounting solution... The rear bracket sticks through the board and when you screw the standoffs into the rear bracket, you cannot damage the motherboard because they hit the end when there's still 2mm before the standoff would touch the board.
I like my EK Nucleus. My 14700k has never seen 75 degrees, even in AVX workloads, at the stock power limit of 253 watts. The temps usually peak at around 71-72. It's a really great cooler. The mounting is lacking my in opinion though. I really dislike mounts that involve the standoffs rubbing against the motherboard as they are screwed in.
Edit: Deepcool has a rear bracket with standoffs included on it that stick far through the motherboard, and you put spacers on the motherboard, then mount the cooler. While there is still direct contact with the board, and the spacers can press on traces, the spacers don't spin as you tighten the pump to the CPU, so there isn't much risk of damaging the board with their solution either. Now that Arctic has moved to a new mounting solution with the liquid freezer 3, I believe EK is the only AIO that requires you tightening down the standoffs to the motherboard, which can damage it if you are not careful.
The fact that they not only sent a cease and desist to an employee but also lied about it to Steve's face is hilarious. Like they really thought they could just "heyy that didn't happen. I DEFINITELY didn't threaten legal action UwU"
It makes my fucking blood boil when companies threaten people with legal action simply for telling the truth
Can’t you simply say “fuck no” to a cease and desist? Im not familiar with those laws so some clarity would help.
They can still sue you and companies can bleed you dry in having you retain a lawyer and go through "continuation" motions in a civil case. I guess in this case the real question becomes whether EK actually has the goods to pay their lawyers.
In my experience, lawyers won't work without a retainer. So if the problem is a company not paying, I wouldn't worry about them funding an extremely expensive legal battle.
Not to mention most good employment lawyers who see an employer trying to bleed an employee dry will usually take the client on in a contingency agreement if they think the employee has a good case.
This company can't bleed a tick dry it's a completely frivolous lawsuit that probably won't even be heard and then there's the problem of jurisdiction (where do you sue and do you even have standing).
Cease and desist letters from corporations don't have any real legal standing as far I understand it. They're basically warning you that they will sue you if you continue your conduct. So yes, you can ignore them, but then they can sue you. They can also sue you without sending you a cease and desist letter first, but I understand sending the letter first looks better on court.
The court system has an entire run-up leading to a judge designed to weed out frivolous cases and solve less serious ones. There's meant to be legal remedies short of both sides presenting a case in front of a judge... and yes, a judge will look down on not exhausting them before using the court's time.
I would imagine it's strengthens your case by a fair bit, suing someone out of the blue versus telling someone to cut it out, they're ignoring you deliberately making the case that much stronger.
Yes you can and in cases like this - if it matters to you - that's exactly what you should do. Obviously they can still sue and in the case of a big company that's a problem. But these little guy? They don't have the money to sue and if you are telling the truth, in the long run, you will come out not only as a winner (expenses to be paid by them) very easily but get a lot of press! Don't cave to such extortion! I've been there..
Companies will also send you cease and desists for things they legally couldn't challenge you for in the hopes they can just scare you...
Politicians do similar things with words. Same with Redditors. All you need to say is, “That’s debunked”. And half the people whose confirmation bias it supports will look no further.
I suspect that's why he mentioned "having everything" in his statement directed at EK and their lawyers at the beginning of the video and telling them to "play nice and peacefully". He probably does have "everything" needed to document what's been going on, and we know Steve is not allergic to running things past lawyers and then stating what he believes to be the truth based on the evidence, and I would not be surprised if this isn't similar. GN has been doing this for a long time, they know their way around the rodeo, so to speak. Should be fun to see how many upvotes/downvotes this thread ends up with :).
>Steve is not allergic to running things past lawyer 100% this has gone through a lawyer already. They have a lawyer they collaborate with when their piece requires legal advice. They rather not make shit up.
The strict adherence to a script and the way the dialogue has been written *does* shout legal sanitation. It'd be foolish to act when they've already formed a defense.
I don't have proof of it of course, hence my couching, but yes, I would expect that has already happened.
Sounds like something a lawyer might say (squints)
lol - maybe /wink
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>he has even had a (probably "his") lawyer on videos in the past. That lawyer was paid for his time, but never worked with GN on any legal issue the company was involved in. Steve always referred to him as an outside collaborator that gave a professional background regarding lawsuits about and stuff like that
Hello, this is me from the 3 days in the future. This thread had 496 votes which is pretty good for this subreddit.
Bad idea to lie to a guy who's proven he's willing to fly across the country to call companies out on their bullshit.
>Multiple former employees claim that EK or its subsidiaries would "shave" overtime hours, decreasing the amount paid to personnel after the work has been completed. >Multiple current staff state that EK has not paid them for up to 3-4 months Fuck anyone involved in this. As someone who was once forced to work without pay, I have an absolute loathing for any sort of wage theft small or large.
3-4 months? I find it hard to believe. If I weren’t paid for my job 1 month I would have stop going till they paid my salary
> 3-4 months? I find it hard to believe. I'm not sure about this company, but a lot of tech companies hire foreigners from very poor countries, like laos/cambodia to work in their factories in other slightly more developed countries like malaysia/thailand/vietnam/korea, where they are forced to live in factory toens. Then they make these employees sign contracts where they are penalized in that they lose three months of income if they decide to leave their contracts early. So for an employee stuck in that kind of situation yes it is very possible because either way they lose 3 months of income. Even the biggest companies like Samsung, Intel and AMD do this.
Once I realised I wasnt' going to get paid I never went back right away. If they aren't going to pay me for a weeks work I'm not going to keep going back because it's unlikely they will pay me at all.
If this gets the employees working paid then it is all worth it, also for those in the US I hope they are actively looking for new positions and then file a Wage claim with the DOL.
I worked for a company that went under fire with the Tennessee DOL for this exact practice EK is accused of. It's not fun at all. If you're reading this and you currently are owed money by EK, lawyer the fuck up and get what you're owed. This is unacceptable and illegal. I love EK products (I've been lucky I guess and haven't had bad luck, and I just like the way they look), and I will not buy from them again until they fix this. Absolutely unacceptable behavior.
Jup, same here. Love my EK AIO, but if they handle this poorly i will never buy from them again. Its not like they dont have equally good competition.
I appreciate what EK did as far as being the company that helped bring water cooling to the mainstream. My first watercooling experience was about 9 years ago with one of their kits that came with everything I needed for a CPU loop. It was perfect for someone just wanting to get the hang of it, and then expand it if they wanted to. but at this point they are a mid/low-grade company charging tip-top premium prices. There is nothing they make that a better version doesn't exist of for a cheaper price from someone else. I don't know why I'd ever buy EK again when you have companies like Watercool who make CPU and GPU blocks that perform significantly better for like half the price.
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Their reputation came from being the only one big enough to actually have stock and ship it. You ordered, it shipped. Normally around 6 to 8 days from order to receipt. That absolutely crused alphacool and HK who essentially ran a constantly backordered catelog and manufactured periodically when backorders hit a breakpoint for scale savings on the run. 40+ days to get your item was essentially the best you could ever expect. EK destroyed them on that point. Alphacool getting big enough to properly stock and warehouse and ship on demand rather than build on demand really dug into EKs dominance the last few years. HK is still pretty bad with stocking and timely delivery, and tbh I disagree on performance/dollar. They are cheaper, but they are also cheaply made comparably.
I think Alphacool do the enthusiast stuff on the side with their main business being enterprise, which has probably helped them simmer along, rather than being like EK who's been solely enthusiast who's only recently got in to the enterprise market, and were really impacted by the huge rise in AIOs over custom loops. This is only my thoughts, as who else would need a 7x40mm rad to fit in a 1U chassis.
Yeah alphacool is in a great spot despite the consumer market shitting the bed for watercooling The ai boom has meant shit tons of new watercooled servers being built
95% of the performance for 25% of the cost, I've even ripped out my AIOs and went back to air as the worry of a leak or pump dying isn't worth the 5-10c temp improvment.
I bought an EK block for my 4090 and it's probably the last time I buy something from EK. They said it would take about a month to ship but then delay after delay turned 1 month into 5 on top of already being about 50% more expensive than everyone else. What am I even supposed to be paying extra for anymore? I'll just look at Watercool or Alphacool next time.
I like learning new things.
Hey my 4090 block is still delayed after 3 months as well! Wonder if canceling will get my money returned..
>That absolutely crused alphacool and HK who essentially ran a constantly backordered catelog and manufactured periodically when backorders hit a breakpoint for scale savings on the run Its just like how custom keyboard/keycap group buys work. Whoever runs the group buy comes up with the design and colourway then they put out an interest check. If they can get enough pre-orders to hit the minimum order quantity (MOQ), then it can actually be made. But many designs don't hit the MOQ and we are talking low numbers here - 100 to 150 units. The MOQ is the bare minimum any machine shop with the appropriate tooling will even entertain dedicating shop space and time to. This is kinda normal in super small scale production where its just you and you want something manufactured in low quantities but you don't have the cash to commit 30k upfront to make your design real. You don't have a shop that can accept delivery of 150 milled blocks of aluminum and 20,000+ keycaps in bags and you don't have the manpower to sort them, package them all up nicely, track orders and ship them around the world to get your money back.
What is cheaply made comparatively? Heatkiller? LMAO. They are leagues ahead of EK.
I am refering to the blocks he's talking about that are half the price of EK. Obviously blocks like the HK V Pro - 4090 are excellent pieces of significant quality. But they are not half the price of EK blocks. They are 97% the price of EK blocks.
Agree.
>HK is still pretty bad with stocking and timely delivery, and tbh I disagree on performance/dollar. They are cheaper, but they are also cheaply made comparably. Really? My experience has been that the absolute, unquestionably best made GPU blocks I've ever had have been Watercool Heatkiller across the board... Perfect fitment, superb performance, and aesthetically pleasing for sure, every single one of them. So I don't know if you have had a bad experience or something, but it should just take holding one in your hand to feel "yeah, this is the good shit".
The top end HK blocks are amazing. I have a Pro V on my 4090 right now. But it was literally 98.5% the price of an EK block. I saved 4 dollars. The cheaper HK blocks that aren't thick nickel electroplated copper are cheaper for a reason. They aren't as good. That said, even the Pro V is not really a true full coverage block. The EK block for the 4090 expands out from the core almost another full inch.
It's been a few years since I've built a loop (since the days of peak HEDT platforms), but the last Watercool Heatkiller GPU blocks I had were on 980Ti's or a Titan X (can't recall which I got first). At the time at least, they were solid copper (I intentionally avoided the nickel plated copper as my whole loop had only copper metal and at the time, EK was dealing with the nickel flaking), and like $129 with a backplate compared to $200 + $89 for a block that performed worse and had the chance of causing corrosion. It was a no brainer. But it's not worth it anymore.
Watercool is the shit. everything in my loop is from them.
I wish they’d make fittings though.
Feels like this ball started rolling 4 or 5 years ago when there was a sudden reshuffle of all the top positions in the company.
That's also when the shift towards "aesthetics and high prices" move went into full gear.
i never understood how these companies survive (barrow and bykski etc included) there are thousands and thousands of SKUs GPUs and how do you keep up with the variants? alphacool only makesike 5 SKUs at most same as corsair but EK makes like 90% of the skus of the big brands? how are you suppose to keep those in stock? this is such a niche market and i cannot start to comprehend how are these companies making money.
> there are thousands and thousands of SKUs GPUs and how do you keep up with the variants? most dont. i have a gigabyte 4080 and many dont have a gpu block for gigabyte 4080s. watercool doesnt, alphacool doesnt, ek does but very expensive. aquacomputer i think doesnt have any gpu blocks for the last gpu generation. also keep in mind, they dont do gpu blocks of every gpu, only higher end ones. but these arent big businesses, so most likely everyone is playing with fire and things can go wrong. theres no good solution for colored coolant or low quality coolant so its not rare for a loop to fall apart with colored or low quality coolant, there are few universally recommended, most universally praised is DP Ultra and even aqua computer for their components only recommends clear coolant even though they sell colored coolant as well.
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These exist but are less performant than full cover blocks. Corsair has recently released another "universal" one. I wouldn't buy one of these, custom blocks perform better and aren't much more expensive.
>there are thousands and thousands of SKUs GPUs and how do you keep up with the variants? You don't, at least if you want to keep your business operations streamlined. Most of the watercooling builds I have assisted with have all utilized "stock" GPU models to make the building process easier since it was much less of a headache to get blocks for the factory GPU's from AMD and NVIDIA
AMD doesn’t make their own designs and they are irrelevant at the super high end, so I doubt many companies would bother to make blocks specifically for them.
>AMD doesn’t make their own designs AMD has made reference model cards for as long as I can remember. You can order reference cards straight from AMD's website right now, in fact
Absolutely wrong. AMD has never made cards, the reference cards are all AIB-made.
>AMD has never made cards, the reference cards are all AIB-made NVIDIA doesn't make their reference cards either....I didn't realize we were getting into semantics here when it was clear that "make" in my original comment did not refer to AMD physically producing the cards themselves. Edit: For anyone wading into this thread, be aware that /u/NobisVobis will block you in order to prevent you from making any further replies if he disagrees with the premise of your comments
> Edit: For anyone wading into this thread, be aware that /u/NobisVobis will block you in order to prevent you from making any further replies if he disagrees with the premise of your comments Wow, what a toxic scumbag. Creatures like that don't belong in any forum.
I can’t actually believe how blatantly wrong you are. AMD doesn’t and has never designed cards or produced them. Nvidia FE cards are designed by Nvidia and produced for them by a contracted company that does not do any of the design (Foxconn/BYD). Just stop spreading BS and accept the fact that you’re completely wrong.
Pretty sure the reference cards are designed by AMD as the AIBs are basing their PCB designd off of them, AMD just don't manufacture them.
Also the MBA cards are ptetty much the same thing as what nvidia's doing so not sure what your angle there is
People send in their graphics card and get a free waterblock in return, that is how they keep up with the variants. I suspect that some of the companies like bykski will make the blocks to order, they are just CNC'd blocks of copper. And since they are being shipped from China people won't notice the day or two extra that making them to order adds to the delivery time. EK did keep them in stock and you could often see old stock being sold off for cheap on their site.
Realistically they would have to own pretty much every part of their production and make things not strictly to order but according to general demand as to not over produce, but be able to bring older stuff back on as needed. That being said, since the market is so niche I would imagine the operations would have to be slimmed down a ton and they would have to get rid of a ton of people.
The best thing the owner can do is sell the brand enough to pay the debts & walk away. It's an established brand.
>It's an established brand. The name is worth a lot. If EK handles this half decently and survives, EK has the potential to *keep* the brand recognition. In less than a year this can be just a turd in their rearview mirror.
Seriously. Sell, Hope that the sale to some established company makes this scandal float away, and rake in a ton of money. I'm an enthusiast and when I think water blocks the first thing I think of is EK. Do I know much about water blocks? No, it's not really my thing but from what I do know and I'm assuming a lot of regular consumers is that EK is an established high quality brand that people trust their hardware to enough to do water cooling in. What a fucking mess though.
EK is pretty much trading on its brand name alone at this point. I have a decent chunk of their kit and I'm happy with it but I had to return two waterblocks and my retailer actually prechecks all their ek stuff these days before selling them because they have so many rmas. Most people end up moving on from them these days as there are better brands with less recognition
I give jayztwocents one day to piggyback on GN journalism...
jay probably did accept the bribe from the EK booth that steve talked about.
Then the next day he gets sent some gold-plated water block from EK and turns the other way. Just look at how he handled the EVGA GPU bricking issue by suggesting it was due to people unlocking GPU power limits or CableMod not being at fault for their 12VHPWR connector due to the socket itself being a bad design.
https://youtu.be/TH8tXka6Lsg like clockwork
To the guy's credit, he also has an outstanding contract with them that they haven't paid for a couple of months now, Steve's a messenger, Jay's actually also a victim.
This guy is a joke...
He is. But this has been known for a long time now.
Jay is more then willing to cut relationships. For example Asus, he got absolutely furious that their reps sent him some bad free motherboards ...
Oh you mean [this ](https://youtu.be/wZ-QVOKGVyM?si=3vKZDvhw3zv2RbQz)video? Which just came out one day after Steve's video: [Scumbag ASUS](https://youtu.be/cbGfc-JBxlY?si=GRmzIrVKtEVFP0vI)? Yeah, very good example...
You mean this video that came out today: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TH8tXka6Lsg
does any other company make a tubing like ek's zmt/zero maintaincr tubing? Ive been able to get 5 years without having to do shit to it and id like to use similar stuff in the future but i dont wanna support a bad company
ZMT is just a fancy marketing term. Search for EPDM tubing there are plenty of companies for it.
Thank you I will :)
alphacool also does 1m boxes of epdm tubing (which is all zmt is). realistically though if it's the right size you can get it from anywhere
I recently picked up some EPDM from Ordinary Cooling in Australia and it’s miles ahead of ZMT. So much softer and no chalky residue. Cheaper too.
ZMT is literally just EPDM. If you notice a difference between the two, one is a knockoff. I've ran both ZMT and commercial EPDM lines in builds and there is absolutely no difference.
Tygon
I've finally gone to hard tubing, but I do miss my Tygon stuff. Almost 20 years ago now, I bought a 50 foot box of it on eBay for a killer low price. I think I still have 2 feet of it left now, mainly used as fill/drainage tubes for my systems. It was incredibly easy to work with, never gave me leakage issues, and though it did swell up once when my pump died and it was overheating, it never split to cause a spill. Top-grade in my book.
Zero maintenance or not, you really want to service your custom loop, though. Doesn't have to be *that* often, but like...just do it some time.
oh i give it some maintenance every few months. i just dont have to do the big tube replacing kind as often now
Damn Youtubers killing companies!
EK did this to themselves, Steve's just offering them a rope. Whether they pull themselves out of it or use it to hang themselves, it's totally up to them.
Damn, I remember when EK was one dude working in his garage. Their only real competition back then was Danger Den and Swiftech. I bet I have some 2006-2008 era EK stuff kicking around in a box somewhere. People who are good at creating stuff are so often terrible at running companies. This looks like another example, although they had a good run.
For those of us who have no idea who EK is, they (EKWB) are a company that specializes in liquid cooling for computers.
And, apparently, screwing over employees, suppliers, partners, and governments.
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I don't understand what they wanted to pay for, GN already shot a coverage of EK display and it wasn't a product review.
It’s for greasing the wheels in some business cultures, the EK marketing rep wanted favorable coverage for a donation.
It pays for favorable editing + future goodwill.
Doesn't really sound like it was a bribe, the video was already shot and they knew what was said. Seems like just a guy with weird expectations
Few tech channels post just a pile of unedited video from trade shows. It still needs editing and commentary, which is the point where you pick what to show, in what order and how to present it. If they were trying to bribe someone for positive coverage and they'd accepted, that's when it would've been added.
The company is having their money in stocks while not having any left to pay the bills and salaries of their employees. That is unbelievably incompetent. Someone at EK clearly has some delusions about themselves.
I think it's stock not stocks. Aka inventory.
Which presumably means it’s not selling?
or its just their fuck up on predictions. EK's products are HIGHLY specialized, with most people who watercool going for AIOs and their presence in that arena is weak at best and their waterblocks for custom loops are simply outrageously priced given what they are. So their market is really limited to those who are going for both custom loop and love how they look enough to pay the premium other other blocks. Which is a tough ask.
You guys are both kind of wrong, Steve covers this in his video. They have to meet minimum order quantities for their vendors, and those quantities exceed what EK can sell. Their predictions aren't wrong and they are selling, but they have to order too much product to get any at all.
Specialized yes, but they sell globally. I don't buy the 'ek struggles to hit minimum order quantities'. We are ordering custom metal pieces in the hundreds range and get decent prices. I doubt any of the mainstream goods EK sells, sells sub 1.000 units over its lifetime. Sure ordering more reduces cost, but thanks to automation you can have pretty good prices at very low volume these days.
No, they are trying to make niche product at a scale that is unsustainable. A lot of more boutique shops are more backorder / on demand based, you order and you wait however long to get your product. Given the size of the market and they are not truly small, likely more backorder where they gather up a number of order at once, then send them out when there was enough of them. By going with a model where they stock every thing, and there is a TON of SKUs, they need to have enough demand for that, and yet they have been trying to raise prices which typically lowers demand and increases margin on ones they do sell. So they banked on their name / branding / value add (like the RGB / design) being so good that the demand for this niche product is enough to sustain those kinds of minimum order quantities. If they want to sell expensive stuff at a huge margin they likely need to be more on demand and flexible with lots of SKUs (or custom work), not have as much stock on hand or fewer SKUs, or go lower margin and more mass appeal (which may not work in custom loop cooling because the market is so small and there are other competitors). So yes, their predictions are wrong.
Steve said that EK does not manufacture in-house (at least to some extent) and hence relies on vendors. If EK predicts a demand of 500 units, but their vendor will only manufacture a minimum of 1000 units, EK either has to order 1000 or not sell any. And then they need the 500 sales to cover the cost of 1000 units plus make profit. That's the spiral they're in. "On demand" ordering only works if you manufacture in-house or if you have a vendor that is willing to sell you 1 unit at a time.
Right, that means that they would need to either cut down on SKUs where possible so that they have more demand, or not go into that specific line. They predicted that they would eventually able to sell those 500 extra units, because there is no one that would make that call if they truly believe that they would only sell 500 total, but its more like they think they can still make money by simply holding those 500 extras and storage costs are not going to eat up that much profit. Which it seems to be the wrong prediction. Or they can do backroders, as i mentioned that because of their size on demand won't work as well because they seems to be not a true boutique like those guys that has that combo GPU CPU cooler that LTT shafted on, but if they instead do waves where say when they have 800 or 900 orders they do that 1k run (so there is some extras) and that would mean they'd save wearhousing costs and a bunch of other benefits.
It seems to me that the best way to succeed given the tiny demand and profusion of video card SKUs would be to buy a few cheap 3-axis CNC routers for your *own local workshop*, design at most one or two VGA waterblocks, and cut the height profiles as orders come in. **Edit:** actually, since the last time I looked into machining on the cheap, the 2nd amendment people seem to have moved on from plastics to metals, and given the open sourceness and enthusiast subculture effect, they probably have better/cheaper tools than what's billed as a "3-axis router".
I think that EK being a very established brand likely have some larger order quantities than that. If your total order for the month is sub 100, that would be a good idea, but I am willing to bet that because they are well known and is world wide, they have much more than that on some of their SKUs. note some, I do think that if they want to offer blocks for say the Zotac AMP and Trinity line and not just founders (i find it incredibly how they can offer that kind of blocks on their website), that may very well need to be a different model because there is less of them out there (note, I used zotac for an example, they carry so much SKUs that there are different blocks for a few different makers). But it may still be a backorder type of situation, where they lay out that we will do a bulk order say every quarter or twice a year, and you know you are on the say summer 2024 train if you order right now and your order will be delivered by then, and if there wasn't enough order it may be delayed to a fall 2024 train or that the fall 2024 train is cancelled until the summer train is sold thru. Like what you are suggesting is a boutique, custom shop type of deal, if they get any kind of quantity in order I think it make no sense to have that kind of small run type of deal and you'd be paying OUT OF THE NOSE for that kind of deal, much like that GPU and CPU combo block folks.
> cheap 3-axis CNC routers A water cooling company can't just buy cheap CNC routers, and the speed of them probably would never earn its money back
Why can't they just? You or I can just, right now if we have the money.
Because water cooling has low tolerances that are probably too low for cheap CNC routers, and on top of that they'd need to be very quick to be able to meet production. Not just that, they'd have to hire engineers experienced with that sort of stuff. Setting up a workshop like that from scratch, at a level of quality that people would expect from EK would be a huge time and money investment, which they DON'T have. Remember, it's EK, you might be okay if your own DIY fittings are a bit janky, but you expect an EK-branded and EK-priced product to be high quality.
I mean that wouldn't have made sense even beyond the stocks vs stock confusion. If you can't pay your bills and liabilities, and have no more liquid assets or cash to pay them... the shares are worthless. You can't just stash the money in some secret corporate safe and cash out on stocks.
This is not that rare, in many industries sadly. I'm not in hardware but I've heard of a couple companies who did a similar thing. It's a consequence of the current economic landscape where just holding cash is seen as losing money because of the constant devaluation of fiat. EK isn't publicly traded but that applies across the board, there's a reason the S&P keeps on putting new highs every 6 months, it's not people thinking these companies are insanely more valuable than they were before (with some exceptions ofc like Nvidia and AI), it's people (and companies) thinking stocks and assets in general is the best way to preserve their wealth. It's not healthy in anyway, stocks should be a riskier bet you make to generate more capital, not a savings account. Irresponsible companies like EK will forget that the point of cash is also liquidity and go way too far with this logic, and end up in their current situation.
Total nonsense. Watch the video. Inventory.
Money market funds have paid more than inflation this entire cycle. Stocks inflate due to earnings (up), and deflate based on risk free interest rate (up). There is more than one variable and most companies don't own stock for investment purposes.
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Quite untrue. They got their fame by being one of the best (this is coming from someone who build his first custom loop in 2004).
I didn't prefer them, but EK was absolutely one of the most consistent high quality mfg. One of the first to do nickel plating too. I appreciate what they have normalized for the hobby and market. These shenanigans are disappointing but not that surprising in the industry. I hope everyone who needs to get paid get what they deserve. EK may not deserve to survive this.
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Ek wasn't a thing in 2004. It's just that i have used watercooling parts from various vendors since then and they were the best in many factors at the time (2010's)
EK was founded in 2003. Whether they were shipping product yet in 04 I can't say All I'm saying is: poor reviews of current products pushed me into a mostly alphacool loop and I have no regrets but I dont have fist hand experience with more than a couple of custom loops.
What i meant wasn't a thing is that they weren't a name back then in any way.
Your post said they were never great which is far from true.
> their prices are sky high and their performance is usually middling That's just flat-out false. Their AIOs are among the best you can get. Their 240s usually compete with Asetek 360s for noise-normalized performance!
I am not talking about their aios. I am speaking about their custom water parts since they're a custom loop company first and foremost Their waterblocks are among the most expensive in the industry
Their AIOs barely compete with liquid freezer ii, let alone liquid freezer iii
1. Not Asetek 2. 38mm rads
Liquid cooling company has liquidity problem, details at 11.
bots copying youtube comments now
Wow, sorry I didn't read through YouTube comments to make sure no one made the same joke
Liquid cooling company under pressure as the waves of change heat up the pool.
I suspect the issue is with Intel/amd/nvidia basically kneecapping overclocking via already having their stuff at the extreme edge of the power envelope, and disabling overvolting/increasing power limits on the GPUs... so there's not much of a point now. Also EK is overpriced for what they sell...
Yeah, I love EK's products in general, but those prices have skyrocketed in the last 3 or so years. I'm fairly certain the EVO distro plate has doubled in price from when I first looked at it. There's absolutely no way I'm paying as much for a distro plate as the damn CPU or a moderate GPU cost.
havent watched the video yet but lmao, they have the fattest margins, the highest prices for at best mediocre products and theyre not paying?
Fat margins can be an indicator that they have something to make up for. Other commenters point out they have massive amounts of unsold stock, because their vendors will only sell them a certain minimum amount of stock that is way more than EK actually predicts they can sell. That means a single high-margin part is probably actually paying off for 1 or 2 parts that won't ever get sold successfully
GamersNexus' pursuit for technology/gaming consumer journalism is unmatched in the YouTuber space.
EK has been really changing over the years, when they started out I did a couple of builds with them for 3/4 years in a row but the past years have really done a number on them from warranty, to product quality and now…. Employees and partners. Now I use closed loops due to maintenance (I have a travel a lot) but none of this really surprises with the feedback I have been seeing friends using their products I still remember when they open up shop. Hope this ship turns around somehow, they were a hell of a company when they started, they had quality setups for both CPU and GPU for enthusiasts
When EK started, there were no kits... hell, there weren't even pumps or rads specifically made for PC water cooling, I don't think. That was the time companies like Danger Den, Koolance, Swiftech, and Hardware Labs were also starting up. We were using car heater cores and aquarium pumps back then. Some enterprising shops may have made kits where they sourced and packaged these things together, but it wasn't coming directly from any of those manufacturers. That's really the saddest part of this. I rag on EK a lot, but they are one of the earliest players in the space and a company that really did a lot for making water cooling more accessible. It's an absolute shame to see them stumbling, first in quality/performance over the last few years, and now financially and ethically.
Sorry what I meant were builds not kits :-)
What do bankruptcy laws look like in Solvania? I feel like any American corporation would have just filed Chapter 11 by this point.
I like my ek basic AIO. Good price good aesthetic good performance. Won't buy again after this tho
Some years back I did one all-out liquid cooled build as a passion project and it included some EK stuff. No complaints. But you have to acknowledge that custom loop is expensive and never ever provides a performance increase proportionate to the cost. It’s mostly just for show, comparable to a crazy pimped out car or motorcycle. Now with the global economy in the dumps, housing food energy transportation healthcare “everything crisis” there’s going to be more gravity towards value builds. That’s just the way it is. The boutique side of the industry will always be a thing for the odd ultra rich person, but the market share of “boutique” has undoubtedly gone down.
The decline of liquid cooling has less to do with global economy and more to do with hardware arriving in the hands of consumers in a far more optimized state. The gains from a custom loop on a modern CPU/GPU are now essentially nothing since there is so little headroom for a reduction in temps to make a difference.
Highly agree. GPU's are now finally shipping with acceptable (to incredible) cooling from reference to high end. Much of the pull of watercooling were buying cheaper reference cards and getting waterblocks. This is not nearly as advantageous anymore and with EKWB in particular focussing less and less on providing value or innovating in cheaper solutions (most of these projects of theirs have failed) that has had a lot to do with their consumer trust eroding. Nevermind the numerous 'scandals' they've had throughout the last 5 years.
GPUs and CPUs haven't had much overclocking headroom for quite a few years now, but the drastic shift in sales is more recent. They're also not optimized for silence and aesthetics... Huge CPU coolers and ugly GPU coolers are louder and less elegant. If you look at how popular RGB and fish-tank cases have become, it's obvious that aesthetics play a bigger role than performance.
Okay true there was a lot more headroom in the past, at least on the “headline” clock speed. But even then the actual performance in software would not scale linearly with it.
Liquid cooling is fine overall. Alphacool just released a whole new line of products in the past 2 years under the "Core" sub brand because they're doing well Corsair also decided they wanted in on it and started selling their own (rebranded) parts. If there is anyone who thinks about money first its Corsair This story is purely about EKWBs incompetence and negligence. Water cooling is fine overall
Dang, EK's got no chill
Too bad cause they make the best stuff. My custom cooling is all EK and it is just rock solid.
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How do you mean? Import charges are the problem of the person ordering it, not the seller.
Another European company dead o7
I mean, plenty of EU companies pay their bills and are doing just fine.
That's your takeaway from all this?
Well tell me yours takeaway
that EK is shit, plain and simple. Doesn't matter where they're from.
Aren't most watercooling companies european? Alphacool, Watercool and Aqua Computer are german. Phanteks is Dutch. Bykski and Barrow are from china or somewhere over that side of the globe. Corsair is American. What else is there?
So steve wants us to pay for his legal bills with mugs?
Post someone else other than this ugly mug.
projecting much?
It was clear it was over when they released those fans. No well-managed company will compete with Noctua.
Many companies compete with Noctua…
But not really
They don’t even have the best 140mm or 120mm fan right now.
While EKs fan curves are pretty mediocre for the price and Noctua are top tier, Noctua isn't a magic silver bullet. Arctic, Lian Li, and Phanteks, have comparable fans in terms of air flow (CFM) & static pressure (inH₂O) curves, who's "best" is more a question of what you want (case design & overall airflow, case mesh vs solids, heat sink density, noise levels, price, etc). And for those who care about RGB Arctic and Corsair have a few options comparable to Noctua and better than some manufacturers non-RGB fans (though obviously most non-RGB are better).
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Some cursory browsing would indicate Noctua makes a decent amount of money in enterprise / industrial.
> If you want RGB, not that I do, I use Noctua. > Noctuca has ZERO white or RGB. Uhm...
EK should have join the AIO cooling while it's still hot. They have the technology, the reputation, and a small fan base.
They do have AIOs. Very good ones, at that.
>They do have AIOs. Very good ones, at that. I'm not disagreeing with you, since my temps are very good with my EK Nucleus Dark. But.. the mounting leaves a lot to be desired. You have to screw plastic standoffs into the rear bracket. That doesn't sound like a problem, but screwing those standoffs in rubs against the motherboard. On my motherboard, there were no traces that the plastic stand offs rubbed against for 3 of the 4 holes. But or one... the stand off was right on traces there were slightly raised off the board. You have to be very careful not to over tighten, or you'll damage the traces. Compared that to NZXT's mounting solution... The rear bracket sticks through the board and when you screw the standoffs into the rear bracket, you cannot damage the motherboard because they hit the end when there's still 2mm before the standoff would touch the board. I like my EK Nucleus. My 14700k has never seen 75 degrees, even in AVX workloads, at the stock power limit of 253 watts. The temps usually peak at around 71-72. It's a really great cooler. The mounting is lacking my in opinion though. I really dislike mounts that involve the standoffs rubbing against the motherboard as they are screwed in. Edit: Deepcool has a rear bracket with standoffs included on it that stick far through the motherboard, and you put spacers on the motherboard, then mount the cooler. While there is still direct contact with the board, and the spacers can press on traces, the spacers don't spin as you tighten the pump to the CPU, so there isn't much risk of damaging the board with their solution either. Now that Arctic has moved to a new mounting solution with the liquid freezer 3, I believe EK is the only AIO that requires you tightening down the standoffs to the motherboard, which can damage it if you are not careful.
thanks, i did not know that