Wednesday, May 31st 2023
EK Launches New $25k Racing Simulator
EK had a secret invite-only launch event in Taiwan this week, only letting the press know to expect something the company had never done before. We arrived to be greeted by a big racing simulator rig, currently titled EK Sim Racer, which the company is planning for retail launch in time for PAX West in early September. What distinguishes the EK Sim Racer is an extremely clean design that makes it look more like a finished car and has every feature you can think of. There's the expected seat with full motion, a 32:9 curved display, haptic feedback in various places, timing belts and a responsive wheel with plenty of buttons and sticks alike, and of course RGB lighting. The lighting in the front also acts as a visual indicator of the steering and braking in real time for the audience to look at, as we suspect this will be a product more likely to be seen in an arcade than in someone's home given the physical form factor—it will ship pre-assembled. Powering the EK Sim Racer is a pre-built EK liquid cooled system, although this is optional and you can use your own PC with the launch edition expected to sell for $19,999 by itself or $24,999 with the PC included.
24 Comments on EK Launches New $25k Racing Simulator
Hasn't EK abandoned it's line of interconnected water cooling stuff similar to Aquacomputer's, just because they couldn't make their software to work?
Found it:
EK offers a full refund for irate EK-loop Connect software users
EK LOOP CONNECT SOFTWARE UPDATE just a pack of lies
(It's even worse than just abandoning it - they're promising users that bought their non-functioning hardware and software that they're just about to publish an update that should fix all the issues. At least they were in 2020 and 2021, and then they just stopped mentioning this disaster.)
And now they want to charge someone a $20.000 for a sim product - a field they have no experience in, and where product is useless if it doesn't interact with the software (game) flawlessly?
I know it's not their work, they just slapped EK sticker on someone elses work. But software support of sim hardware is a problem for much, much larger companies - Logitech, Thrustmaster. You're gonna get abandonware.
EK has no common sense whatsoever.
Dafuq. Its hideous.
It would seem that hardline tubing is particularly sensitive to vibration and knocks, and I'd always treat them as the most fragile systems you could possible handle; A tiny bit of chassis flex and OOPS you've popped a seal because the only give in the entire loop is the rubber seals in the compression fittings.
During Covid I bought a DOF Reality P3 motion rig (has three 24v motors, not actuator driven) which was a HUGE upgrade vs my previous static rig. I paid $2,500. Add another $1,700 for the Fanatec gear, but that's still less than a quarter the price of this thing. What are the stats on this? What actuators? 6 DOF? LOL!
Anyone that even remotely enjoys sim racing should try a motion rig in VR. It's an experience.