EKWB in trouble?

Caracus2k said:
I wonder how much stock OCUK has had of EK this year?

They still seemed reasonably well stocked (about as well as they normally have been on the past) but I imagine the 5000 series GPU launch might really show the cracks... if EK hasn't collapsed already before then.
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Personally waterblocks at £230+ for GPUs when the actual gen is doable on air (4090 apart), pretty much limited people going for a new build. For those who already own most parts, still acceptable.
Tried the other day just spec a custom loop, using Alphacool, which should be cheaper. Triple 360 + AM5 + 4080 + reservoir/pump and fittings (soft tubing). Almost £700, including the 10% off that was available at the time.
That money alone would allow me to upgrade the 4080 to a 4090 or upgrade my Dell 1440p 27” to a 32” 4K 144Hz + 360mm AIO and change.

If I had bought and AIO of EKWB, through OCUK, I wouldn’t be panicking assuming there’s a bigger chance to solve any warranty until the seller is managing it. But after that period, I can bet my wages EKWB won’t be around much longer.

What will bury the company, on top of their incompetence, is the actual cost of money, allied to the reduced disposable income.

Much larger businesses collapsed when they couldn’t access “cheap” money to simply carry on rolling their debits, loan to pay a previous loan at very low APR. On top of that, people who struggled last winter, will be much more careful this year, even if things doesn’t look as bad (my opinion or simply got used to it now).

And the last string, competition from other manufactures (Arctic and Thermalright, as more known brands, also Deepcool if available).
 
The fact ek paid think was 25k to jayz2cents
Rather than pay some employees with it
Even after Jay had publicly said
Pay the employees my business won't suffer too much
If it has to wait for payment
Kind of shows ek in an even worse light to me

I think they're going under
All this publicity whose going to offer them
A large amount of credit to sort things out?
I doubt any lender will even at very high interest rate
Unless they own anything valuable enough to be used as collateral
Even then I wouldn't after seeing some of the stuff on GN
About how they do business

Comparing them to thermal grizzly
And derbuaer or however you spell it
I know which company looks more honest and transparent
About how things are done
Maybe thermal grizzly can buy them out
 
The only value they could have was brand and that is a toast now. They don’t own machinery, apparently all money was “diverted” as personal loan, or any other dubious action. The 25k paid to Jay seems more like they doubling down to try and scam big time than a honest attempt to sort things out.
Make everyone believe they’re operating as normal before Xmas time, claim the orders must pay in advance because is someone else’s fault they don’t have credit or any mug to do the work for them free of charge and bail without delivering the products.
The turning point was way before that.

About Der8auer, a different approach. I don’t use kryonaut anymore because I can’t justify the price and the drawbacks of it in my case, but is a honest person running a honest business.
He knows a lot, is a perfectionist and now have some great guy from EKWB working with him. I expect to see, yet expensive, but very solid kits coming out.
 
Over the last few gens, I found Bykskis blocks(instructions aside) to be the same wuality and performance as EK. EK looks nice but thats about it. I wont be missing them to be fair.
 
Honestly, aside from the Torque fittings (and not even the adapters) and the Velocity 2 CPU block, I don't think anything from EK even looks good these days.
 
After watching the video, I can’t help feel that they don’t deserve to be saved. The staff and suppliers don’t deserve to get screwed over either though.

I guess their value is the IP? I wonder if a competitor will come in after they’ve collapsed and pick up the brand and IP and continue it on. EK have shown there’s money in it, and a properly managed team would help release it.
 
Whats the IP there exactly? Anyone with access to CNC could design a waterblock. Brand name is tarnished beyond repair, so the entire conpany is prettty much worthless.
 
I have watched the various GN videos about EK and am gutted. As much as I hated paying what I paid for countless GPU and CPU water blocks from them over the years (easily 20+ CPU and GPU blocks), as well as fittings and some rads too, I always knew I was getting something which did the job really well and looked great.

The sheer amount of chaos and skullduggery behind the scenes really was an eye-opener.
 
I think like most we want the BRAND to survive due to the vast product range they have. However, after the eye opening detail about the poor and shady business from ALL the higher management and CEOs they don't deserve to be in charge.

Staff should see compensation and damages for missed salary payments which will further damage the company that already has zero money. The brand will be devalued and that might hopefully prompt a takeover bid from a rival company that actually have their on tooling and production factories.

If they really cared about paying suppliers and wages they would have already done a mega sale like 50% off to get a quick influx of cash to "reset" the books and then worried about lack of stock once on better ground
 
I wonder, if EK does essentially "die" or is forced to either massively downscale or sell off the brand, what that means for the wider watercooling customer base and market. They have such a large marketshare in the watercooling space it obviousily opens up to allow other companies (or new ones) to come in claim that additional marketshare but also could mean a reduction in the size of the market. Those who exlusively or predominantly buy EK products may end up leaving the market rather than finding a new manufacturer.
 
Watercooling is slowly dying off, just look at how many long time watercoolers on here (me included) have gone back to air cooling. Overclocking, for all intents and purposes, is dead and there is little reason apart from looks to go watercooling these days. With the massive increases in price, especially EK's overpriced stuff, and the rise of affordable, no maintenance AIO's the writing is on the wall for custom watercooling. On top of that watercooling performance seems to have hit a wall and even these silly expensive blocks are only a tiny bit better performance wise. Why spend £150+ on a block when a £35 block will get you withing 2-3 degrees of it's performance? I think it will take a major rethink in block design before performance increases by a worthwhile amount. If that wasn't enough you have Thermalright undercutting everyone with very high quality, high performance air coolers and AIO's so you can either pocket the cash you would have spent on a custom water setup or spend it on better components where it matters most. It was good while it lasted but like most things eventually it comes to a end.
 
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For me its all complete *******.

When the story first broke i looked at items showing instock and it was easily into the 6 figure range. IF they really cared pay people they would have clean their warehouses of discounted stock, to show suppliers/creditors its not about pure greed and its about making the company survive.

He knows he cannot be trusted and has had to get other "senior" people within the business to appear with the same scripted ******.

The fact that they do ZERO inhouse R&D and its all outsourced to 3rd parties, reduction in quality and increased prices over the years show they are just after top line profits.

The cheek in the video stating they are now able to release "delayed new products" so more wasted money on R&D rather than getting out of the whole they are in. They are hanging on by a thread and hoping the Nvidia fan boys will all flock to spend £200-300 eor each on 5090 blocks lol
 
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How many times were references to small team,
Limited resources, etc mentioned
Well yeah because you didn't pay your employees is why
You now have a small team
Then got the ###### cheek to say we would like
To invite back some of the employees we ###### over

Created a new entity
Sounds like lawyer talk for put it in the wife's name
So we aren't liable sort of sneaky move

Four and a half minutes of use the right buzz words
About as sincere and believable as a kid
Caught with their hand in the cookie jar
 
After that it'll be interesting to see if stores start stocking EK products again, noticed most have just been clearing stock since this story broke.
 
Exactly this. Warranty is another uncertainty.
Personally bought a nucleus 360, which os as much as I’m happy risking if it dies.
Too bad some products are good, some are bad, but management is mediocre.
 
srekal34 said:
Whats the IP there exactly? Anyone with access to CNC could design a waterblock. Brand name is tarnished beyond repair, so the entire conpany is prettty much worthless.
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Yea you can, buy then can you actually take it to market? or does someone own patents for the methods you chose.

Everything's probably patented to death, I doubt it's as easy as you think.

Seems EKWB have 10+ patents, mostly for fittings though so probably not worth a whole lot to other manufactures, but they might be enough to block others
 
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arknor said:
Yea you can, buy then can you actually take it to market? or does someone own patents for the methods you chose.

Everything's probably patented to death, I doubt it's as easy as you think.

Seems EKWB have 10+ patents, mostly for fittings though so probably not worth a whole lot to other manufactures, but they might be enough to block others
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I dont think there is anything to patent in waterblocks. Optimus literally started with 1 cnc machine and is making the best waterblocks ;)
 
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