EKWB Lays Off 25% of Workforce, Blames Lower Watercooling Sales

[X71200]

Ah you are one of those people that brings up old things with out showing proof it's still the same.

Well I do know I had issues with 3 fans from them they replaced them and even didn't ask me for them back. They work just are louder then they should be so can still use them in a build where they are muffled

Those early Vardar fans were at times horrible at reliability, and they distributed a good amount of those. Not to mention the leaking issues of their modular Predator and Phoenix units. Really seems like the more you dig into this brand, the further quality problems pop out. I had some of those fans that either rattled or didn't work properly. For some relatively new fans to do this, you know. Had the bearings of couple oiled to work fine, but the other one / ones just never got to spin right.

 

[erocker]

AIO's. Why bother with a cumbersome open loops when AIO's have become pretty foolproof and offer good performance.

 

[tkpenalty]

Ummm.....the same guys are STILL IN CHARGE so it is entirely relevant to bring up. Trust is hard to earn and easy to burn.


Nah we're just gonna keep releasing products for stock reference boards only. Let's raise prices, that'll fix it


There's also cooler design to consider. Air cooling has made massive strides, and the embracing of triple slot cards gives air cards a lot more breathing room.

My 6800xt for example runs at 55c average and 72c hotspot, running a mild OC at 300w average power draw. While doing so the card is almost inaudible.

With a cooler like that who needs a waterblock

Posting here after not being on TPU for 10 years (good to see you're still here) but, at least they have made attempts to fix the problem - they're very active on SNS / trawl through reddit to help people with issues.
Regardless or not if the person in charge was the issue, they've changed their ways, and also I don't think that's driven sales away.

I agree though, why do they only release for reference / some AIB-only designs when Barrow/Bykski are immediately ready for every model on the market?

I kind of disagree about the comparison between a waterblock and a triple slot cooler. No GPU with fans on it is remotely silent, unless you're talking about the 3070 Noctua.
Also using 3 to 4 slots is ludicrous...

Anyway they're premium / more luxury products, given what's been going on I think people are starting run out of money to be so lavish. Sure an AIO is not really that close to say a custom loop in performance, but it's -enough- for most people.

Some of it has been self afflicted - they had some serious supply issues since the pandemic started. I get they need to keep their manufacturing in Slovenia, but vs say all the Taiwan/China ODMs they'd lose out supply chain wise pretty easily.

I was talking to some distributors in Australia and they claimed that EKWB literally couldn't sell any custom watercooling stuff - it was backordered by months, as of last week. It's either they can't ship it, or have the raw materials to make it - so blaming it on COVID-19 is pretty legitimate. There's also a madman throwing missiles around fairly close by...

 

[Thaodan]

Corsair has better WB for half the price, and Optimus has ones that are much much better for similar prices.

The only thing I use EK for are tubes and fittings.

I think Corsair can sell things like this cheaper to attract more people to their other products.
Also Corsair has a wider product like and can take a loss on something like this that is used by a much smaller audience anyway.

Corsair probably also creates their products in China for cheaper.

 

[pathfindercod]

Their sales have dropped because they have gone batshit crazy with their prices on water blocks.

 

[Mussels]

Well, they had some really shonky product quality for a bit there :/

My GPU blocks are designed to work as a pair (the active backplate cannot be used with ANY other product) and yet they didnt match up the RGB lighting in any way at all - they look totally different. Oriented on opposite sides, different LED counts, and the lighting only lights half the backplate (by design!)
One LED has already died, too.
Trivial issue, but the ARGB cords come out opposite ends as well... they're a matching pair. Make the cables near each other and the same length, ffs.


And as for their coolants... 4 bottles had to go in the bin after turning into clag, and permanently marking and damaging those blocks. It's only visual damage but FFS, they need to do better.
(Yes, they sent me other coolants to replace them. No, i did not ask for replacement blocks over cosmetic issues)

AIO's. Why bother with a cumbersome open loops when AIO's have become pretty foolproof and offer good performance.

Not too many AIO's for GPU's out there these days

 

[Palladium]

Not one bit shocked, as someone who will never touch custom liquid cooling.

 

[ypsylon]

I would argue simply: what did they really expect?

EK pricing was on weed and meta-amphetamine for at least 4 years (say end of 1xxx cards). Blocks were ridiculously expensive compared to competitors. There was 0 reasons to increase prices between 1xxx series and 2xxx GPUs from Nvidia, but they did it. EK completely f*ed up Threadripper blocks at first try. Then those stupidly expensive CPU blocks for 250 Euros, WTH will buy them if performance was worse than blocks for 100 Euros? EK simply overextended into "luxury GAMING!!! enthusiast" and skimped on broadening the range. And if they actually manufactured this in EU not in China they wouldn't have to rely on shipping across the World.

Of course because of Covid logistic went to hell with constant delays and shutdown. That surely has some bearing on this, but only some.

Metal pricing went through the roof. With Nickel recently after Russian invaded Ukraine hit like 35000$/t. China bought huge quota before invasion started so prices went like so :snap fingers: to the stratosphere. Now with Ukraine destroyed 3rd biggest nickel producer is gone. Copper went up and up for years except small dip in 2020 (~4.5k$), but now that's solid 10k$/t and climbing.

I have now only 3 EK blocks, one for 3090 and 2 for 1080Tis. They're fine, that 3090 was kind of expensive, but backplate was absolutely required, because aircooled 3090 just cooks itself when rendering. I like simple aesthetics, but I efing hate that you have to dismantle new blocks to take out all the RGB crap (that's not only EK problem). I always thought that liquid cooling is about functionality not RGB-puke rainbows.

 

[Funytimes]

"Further plans were also initiated that will see EK enter new geographical markets and sales channels with more outstanding and innovative products."

So, you wanna enter new markets and make moar new stuff, but you wanna do this with way fewer employees....... good luck witdat

Well, the question TPU failed to ask, and they were certainly weren't gonna volunteer is:

How many 7-8 figure execs are you gonna let go and/or how many of them are gonna take a pay cut to help your bottom line ??????

oh do tell pleeze....

None of the execs. And there is way to many execs in the company. Each exec had to pick employees from their team and let them go...

 

[Hossein Almet]

They downsize the staffs in Slovenia, because they now outsource some the production to China.

 

[LiveOrDie]

Well maybe sales would be better if they didn't change so much for the waterblock you can buy a new GPU for the same cost lol.

 

[aciDev]

EK simply overextended into "luxury GAMING!!! enthusiast" and skimped on broadening the range. And if they actually manufactured this in EU not in China they wouldn't have to rely on shipping across the World.

You have perfectly expressed my feelings.

Hi EK,
You know, we're not all youtubers!
Personally, I'm not going to pay 28%(345€) of the price I shelled out for an already overpriced video card(MSRP price) for waterblock and backplate.
Especially since its resale value is practically null. In my experience I know that video cards with custom loop WBs sell for less than air cooled ones.


...and it seems like I'm not the only one.

 

[N3utro]

Sad for EKWB and the people who got laid off.

I had a full EK loop before with awesome results and 0 problems.

Yes their prices are high but quality has a price.

It's not surprising that ppl are buying less watercooling solutions since miners dont watercool and they are getting all the cards for 2 years now. It wont get better for EKWB until gpus aren't used for mining anymore

 

[MagnuTron]

Perhaps if they didn't poach their workstation system integrator customers like me, I would give an F...

 

[onemanhitsquad]

I know that their prices have gone up drastically....CNC machining has come a long way and gotten cheaper...300 , 400 close to 500 for water blocks is pretty crazy

 

[TheDoctor-1280]

Ek has priced thselves out of the market. Waterblicks that used to go for $150 ate now ovet $300. Their quality has gone down over the years. They only have themselves to blame

 

[MarsM4N]

Stock coolers on GPU's have also got pretty decent. And AMD did a great job with energy efficiency. So there is for the most not much reason to water coola GPU.
They just put a AIO in their system, mainly because it looks cleaner. A 65W CPU will even stay pretty cool with a boxed air cooler.

If people had money they would still buy custom, but inflation & exploding energy bills hitting hard. Every company that sells "non essential" items will feel it, EKWB is not the first & will not be the last. When poorer folks get hit with 10% inflation, they have 10% less to spend. If they can spend less there is a company on the other end with sales loss, resulting in layoffs. And jobless folks can spend even less. Our economy is in a downwards spiral & some companies will go out of business. Period.

That's just how it is in our capitalist world. "It's never got any better, be happy with what you got." George Carlin

 

[ThrashZone]

Hi,
GPU water block is better than have a three fan hover in your ears

Except when they cost 400.us for an freaking FE it's just whack

 

[jmeistr]

It's due to lack of quality and increased prices imo. I rather buy from their competitors these days.

 

[kapone32]

I bought my first EK block after I saw videos on Youtube that my 6800XT would be 45 C for both the current and Junction temp. I pulled the trigger on that. At the time it was $129.99 Euros. After about 3 months I noticed that my temps were higher than normal. When I looked in the PC I saw that the gasket between the block and the inlet had failed and there was a fountain of liquid spraying across the PC. I contacted EK and the first thing they said to me was that it could have been my fault for not setting the flow correctly. When I said the manual for the block shows the in from the bottom and out from the top. They then said to me that I had only ordered a block but no EK fittings or tubing. I said I have always used Alphacool Quick connect tubing. They decided that they would not honour my warranty as a result. Thankfully I still had my Alphacool block and that has been going strong ever since. I can deal with junctions temps of 70 C. I went on their website the other day and the exact same block is now $183.99 Euros. Of course I will not be buying anything from EK. The other thing is how foolish some of their decisions have been e.g. Release a Monoblock for AM4 but specifically for 1 brand MB that is not even considered the top end. Leaving people with money and sense to wonder how they could expect people who are in the know to buy anything.

https://www.ekwb.com/shop/EK-IM/EK-IM-3831109833728.pdf

 

[TheUn4seen]

Toys for "rich kids" have far higher margins then alternators. Apples and oranges.

Your argument doesn't hold up, the rest of the PC market has seen huge increases in sales. Companies like arctic are selling everything they can make. The GPU shortage is still going on. Other water cooling companies are bringing in new products all the time.

I agree they likely have too many people.

True about missed comparison, but my point, expressed indirectly, was that such a big number of people seems very unnecessary for a niche company and probably has more to do with management wanting to boast about the size of the company and less about actual needs. It's a fairly common problem, especially among small companies. Additionally, my argument was exactly as you noticed, the PC market is growing steadily - although be very careful with statistics, corporations buying millions of computers for their remote employees skew them a fair bit - while the EKEB CEO tries to justify layoffs by claiming the market is shrinking

I have no experience with EK or any of their competitor products for the reasons you just stated but I would say being niche is ok, even being boutique is ok but is it any functionally different than cheaper more mass produced alternatives? Whenever you get to the very high-end of any market value kinda goes out the window but you should still be getting something that sets it out from a functional and quality perspective, not just a pretty finish and expensive materials.

My high-end full suspension trail bike is full of expensive components (some of them probably considered boutique) that are made in the US, Switzerland, Spain, Italy, and Japan, in comparatively low quanitiy in places with more expensive labor. None of them would be considered a good value really but at the same time they are not vastly outside the price range of similar components made Taiwan or China and aside from just being really well made and bling factor offer something that is functionally different.

The fact that EK quality apparently isn't that great and the staff they just laid off is from the engineering side of things doesn't exactly paint a rosy picture for whats happening there.

As above. I'm fairly sure EKWB had a similar number of employees to Santa Cruz Bicycles which raises the question of management quality at EKWB. If a company has this number of employees and still has problems with their product quality on a niche market, well, it probably is just a shit company.

 

[caroline!]

EKWB is the Apple of PC watercooling parts, only hardcore fanboys or people with a lots of money and no knowledge buy their products.

$200 for a rad, $120 for a block, $60 for red distilled water... hilarious.

 

[gasolina]

AIO's. Why bother with a cumbersome open loops when AIO's have become pretty foolproof and offer good performance.

i did purchase an Enermax liqmax iii 120 and swap with 360mm copper radiator and the performance is amazing , the aio only 40-50$ and the radiator alone is 35$ for a magicool 360mm radiator could pay twice or triple for ek or anything thicker but 1-3*c different with 2-3 times higher price is not what i'm looking for .

 

[eidairaman1]

Average quality, somewhat good looking products with ridiculous price tags, no need to look somewhere else EKWB you did this to yourself.
You are selling passive backplate for 45 EUR and 150 EUR for a very simple active backplate that only suckers would buy.

Ek is overrated to me

EKWB is the Apple of PC watercooling parts, only hardcore fanboys or people with a lots of money and no knowledge buy their products.

$200 for a rad, $120 for a block, $60 for red distilled water... hilarious.

Alphacool make custom monoblocks for gpus which is noice

 

[ErikG]

To expensive water blocks, no surprised.
Support zero.