I had some bad experiences with Corsair. I cant forgive them for their insane RGB ecosystem so perhaps I am prejudiced. One of the pcs I have has 2x480mm rads and a 420.... so all those fans. It is in a corsair 1000D case. So the natural choice was to go with Corsair fans, which mean Corsair RGB... because why not.... OMG, more wiring than Boeing 747. Utter torture. Particularly the way that when you build it all out it needs corsair, core, corsair commander, hub etc etc and nothing about it is particularly obvious. Absolutely hate that brand now because of this.
On a more positive note. I have a lot of monsoon components for fittings. I have found them to be robust and reliable. Alphacool is bulletproof in my opinion. I havent ever had a single component that did not do exactly what is was meant to. I have an old alphacool monsta / monster radiator in a pc that has been going forever and it is awesome. It is as thick as some rads are wide so very limited case wise, but its brilliant.
More recently, and against my better judgement I started flirting with Ali Express..... Huge mistake. I got hit with a scam. I am english but living between 3 homes in 3 countries. There is this thing where you place an order and you see a value in the local currency. So you hit buy. BUT, then the delivery becomes a value in dollars, not local currency. Two thoughts on that. 1. I was stupid and perhaps it was obvious. But it was and is a known scam. So instead of the equivalent of about ten euro delivery, I got hit with 725 odd dollars, for delivery of a 45 euro equivalent order. Stay away from Ali guys.... it will get you in the end. I thought I was way too smart for that and yet it happened.
But, before it all went pear shaped. I did order some fittings from aliexpress. From a company, trading parts as Barrow. They were actually pretty good. No complaints.
The things is, that the more you step outside of the EKWB continuum, the more you realise what a fool you were. There is far better, for far less. I had some real bs with EKWB from time to time. Most notably on that build I mentioned above. I planned that build, with help, using a pretty detailed CAD drawing. But then the radiators turned up and they HAD to have a weird gromit thing installed or they would leak. This was not clear on the measurements and specs. To make it worse, one of them didnt even come with them!. I had to go through a massive debate just to get them to send out replacements. It was ridiculous. Prior to that, my experience with them was great. You could speak to a guy that knew where you were coming from and if necessary, would tell you that you got something wrong, or even better, this thing that you are trying to do?, you should buy this as well. Which is on the face of it an upsell. But that was great! I loved speaking to someone who knew what they were talking about and didnt insult my intelligence with a script because frankly, I do this all the time. I am fine with dumbing it down, if it gets people into watercooling and enthusiast pcs. But it got to the point where they made things so granular at order, and so painful that they become an obstruction. Where you get to the point that its a 2 euro cost on a 800 euro order and it isnt there, just because the company wants another buck. That is just wrong and worse, recognisable gross incompetence you recognise if you ever ran a business.
what is Corsair stuff like?
