News EKWB reportedly plagued with financial disarray — many employees and suppliers were allegedly left unpaid for as long as four months

[Admin]

Steve of Gamers Nexus investigated complaints from employees and suppliers for EK Cooling, unearthing unpaid bills and salaries stacking up to 3-4 months while having an unsold surplus of goods.

EKWB reportedly plagued with financial disarray — many employees and suppliers were allegedly left unpaid for as long as four months : Read more

 

[gg83]

I really don't think "communication" was the problem. I always asked myself how this company can turn a profit. Pc modding is a very small market. Their products look amazing but very expensive.

 

[CactusBuilder]

Not only were they a very low volume producer, but I find it absolutely mind boggling that they didn't have standardized parts for near every product.

EK has over 230 water blocks, 40 liquid cooling kits, 85 reservoirs, 40 pumps, 73 radiators, and 212 miscellaneous accessories.

How do you have 73 different radiators? You have a 120mm, 240mm and 360mm. That's it. Maybe you make a one-off custom thin design in partnership with an HTPC case builder, where all parts are guaranteed sold to the case builder.

40 pumps? I can use the same water pump for a fish tank, may cat watering bowl, and to grow seedlings. Maybe you resell two pumps (a high flow and a low/medium flow) that someone else manufactures for pennies and you slap your name on it.

85 reservoirs that should cost literally a penny a piece in bulk, as would the rest of the misc accessories.

The only possible one that would be difficult to have someone else mass produce for you would be the water blocks since they need to be 100% water tight. However every air cooler I have bought over 30+ years of building computers has come with adapters to fit a half dozen different Intel/AMD sockets, and with the advent of AIO's showing you can essentially put the water block on the CPU and never touch the tubes attaching to either end, these too should have just required a 10 cent adapter.

I'm guessing they

1. Got in over their head trying to make these stupid expensive $800 motherboards that just cool down VRMs (big woop)
2. Got their lunch eaten when people stopped building their own water cooling setups and just went with a simple and safe AIO.

It's unfortunate, EK was AFAIK the trusted name in water cooling, and with Intel's absurd power usage they should be killing it right now. I'm just surprised they couldn't tell their suppliers they cannot afford to have 1000 part minimum orders (or even 250). There's simply not enough people who spend that kind of money on their setups and those who do usually hold onto them for a couple of years.

Hopefully either the company can recover or the engineers move to a more stable company. Water cooling isn't going anywhere, especially in the datacenter arena. Maybe the consumer market just isn't large enough to support itself.

 

[Notton]

How do you have 73 different radiators?

It's when you overspecialize for every niche case.
I would assume 120mm *2 and *3 (240mm and 360mm) is the most popular size
Followed by 140mm *2 (280mm, which offers roughly similar performance to a 360mm)

but then there are many niche sizes
40mm (for 1U servers)
50mm
60mm
80mm
92mm
140mm*3 (420mm)
180mm (Some Fractal Design and Silverstone cases use this fan size)

There is radiator thickness. 25mm being the de-facto standard. A thicker option would be 32mm~38mm.
There is also fin density. Some lower noise applications might prefer lower fin density with high airflow fan. High performance may prefer high density with high static pressure fan.
Finally, there is inlet/outlet layout. The most common design has both on the same side, but some have it on opposite ends.

 

[RolandOlifant]

I really don't think "communication" was the problem. I always asked myself how this company can turn a profit. Pc modding is a very small market. Their products look amazing but very expensive.

exactly; very niche and precarious market.

 

[gg83]

Not only were they a very low volume producer, but I find it absolutely mind boggling that they didn't have standardized parts for near every product.



How do you have 73 different radiators? You have a 120mm, 240mm and 360mm. That's it. Maybe you make a one-off custom thin design in partnership with an HTPC case builder, where all parts are guaranteed sold to the case builder.

40 pumps? I can use the same water pump for a fish tank, may cat watering bowl, and to grow seedlings. Maybe you resell two pumps (a high flow and a low/medium flow) that someone else manufactures for pennies and you slap your name on it.

85 reservoirs that should cost literally a penny a piece in bulk, as would the rest of the misc accessories.

The only possible one that would be difficult to have someone else mass produce for you would be the water blocks since they need to be 100% water tight. However every air cooler I have bought over 30+ years of building computers has come with adapters to fit a half dozen different Intel/AMD sockets, and with the advent of AIO's showing you can essentially put the water block on the CPU and never touch the tubes attaching to either end, these too should have just required a 10 cent adapter.

I'm guessing they

1. Got in over their head trying to make these stupid expensive $800 motherboards that just cool down VRMs (big woop)
2. Got their lunch eaten when people stopped building their own water cooling setups and just went with a simple and safe AIO.

It's unfortunate, EK was AFAIK the trusted name in water cooling, and with Intel's absurd power usage they should be killing it right now. I'm just surprised they couldn't tell their suppliers they cannot afford to have 1000 part minimum orders (or even 250). There's simply not enough people who spend that kind of money on their setups and those who do usually hold onto them for a couple of years.

Hopefully either the company can recover or the engineers move to a more stable company. Water cooling isn't going anywhere, especially in the datacenter arena. Maybe the consumer market just isn't large enough to support itself.

Lmao! Great breakdown! That really puts it into prospective. I bet Corsair will end up buying ek for pennies.

 

[durahl]

40 pumps? I can use the same water pump for a fish tank, may cat watering bowl, and to grow seedlings. Maybe you resell two pumps (a high flow and a low/medium flow) that someone else manufactures for pennies and you slap your name on it.

Check their Pump Shop and you'll see 2 pages each listing about 20 items consisting of a bunch of Pumps AND accessories for those few pumps. Same for the 230 Waterblocks which also include their Spare Parts - Classical sensationalism Journalism.

 

[woe2you]

That was a whole lot of unnecessary words, you could have just said "I know nothing about watercooling" and left it there.

You have a 120mm, 240mm and 360mm. That's it.

120mm, 240mm, 360mm, 480mm, 140mm, 280mm, 420mm, 560mm in three different thicknesses, U-flow and X-flow and two different colours

40 pumps? I can use the same water pump for a fish tank, may cat watering bowl, and to grow seedlings. Maybe you resell two pumps (a high flow and a low/medium flow) that someone else manufactures for pennies and you slap your name on it.

Watercooling mostly uses Xylem D5 and DDC pumps, of which there are several SKUs. They're not cheap, but trusting a cheap POS pump to cool hardware worth thousands is an astoundingly stupid idea.

I'd also like to live in your world where low volume CNC machined parts cost pennies. Maybe I just haven't smoked enough crack.

 

[TEAMSWITCHER]

I have two PC's in my home .. one is a completely irrational $5000+ monster Ryzen Threadripper + RTX 3080 machine with full EK water cooling. The other is a far more sensible all air cooled design in a decent air-flow case. I can say emphatically that water-cooling looks fantastic but ... air cooling is better

Air cooled PC's are far easier to build - far cheaper also .. and can be upgraded more frequently. There are so many good air-flow cases now and M.2 storage that eliminates cable clutter.

 

[TechLurker]

I find it wilder that EK has been increasingly outsourcing their products, and is also probably how Swiftech hasn't died itself. I do wish Swiftech would make a return with their X3 AIO and combo rad/pump/res options.

That aside, I'm wondering if some of their other outsource partners might be the same OEMs behind Bitspower and Barrow, given the increasing similarity of some of their rads. Maybe Hardware Labs too (they used to be the OEM for some of Bitspower's radiators, before they started making most of them in-house).

 

[drivinfast247]

Lmao! Great breakdown! That really puts it into prospective. I bet Corsair will end up buying ek for pennies.

God, I hope not!!

Edit: Actually, now that I thought about it for a bit that may not be so bad.

 

[Dingledooda]

Check their Pump Shop and you'll see 2 pages each listing about 20 items consisting of a bunch of Pumps AND accessories for those few pumps. Same for the 230 Waterblocks which also include their Spare Parts - Classical sensationalism Journalism.

Yes it includes the spare parts but take the spare parts out and you still have 166 actual Waterblocks! Go to the Radiators and there are 56 actual Radiators!

Yes they are exaggerating it for effect but when the company does actually sell 166 Waterblocks and 56 Radiators then what they are doing is hardly sensationalism journalism, that would be them saying what they said and you go to the store and they only sell 10 Waterblocks and 6 Radiators.

 

[watzupken]

I actually don't think they are actually selling that well to be honest. The market they are targeting is getting smaller, and custom cooling solution is not exactly attractive for most PC users due to cost and complexity to maintain. Most users will be happy with just a 280 or 360mm AIO cooling solution.

 

[CactusBuilder]

It's when you overspecialize for every niche case.
I would assume 120mm *2 and *3 (240mm and 360mm) is the most popular size
Followed by 140mm *2 (280mm, which offers roughly similar performance to a 360mm)

but then there are many niche sizes
40mm (for 1U servers)
50mm
60mm
80mm
92mm
140mm*3 (420mm)
180mm (Some Fractal Design and Silverstone cases use this fan size)

There is radiator thickness. 25mm being the de-facto standard. A thicker option would be 32mm~38mm.
There is also fin density. Some lower noise applications might prefer lower fin density with high airflow fan. High performance may prefer high density with high static pressure fan.
Finally, there is inlet/outlet layout. The most common design has both on the same side, but some have it on opposite ends.

And this is how you go out of business with a small volume / massive product catalogue business. They didn't need to cater to every single possible fan size, consumers should fit their build around what's available and if they really want something custom, make it themselves.

Honestly what they should have done a LONG time ago in terms of radiators and fans is team up with Noctua (or another well respected brand if Noctua said F off). Now they don't have an overstock of fans they can't sell, because the fan company can just sell them in their own air-cooled kits. Now they'd be getting the large order discount for fans and helping a partner grow as well.

That was a whole lot of unnecessary words, you could have just said "I know nothing about watercooling" and left it there.

120mm, 240mm, 360mm, 480mm, 140mm, 280mm, 420mm, 560mm in three different thicknesses, U-flow and X-flow and two different colours

Watercooling mostly uses Xylem D5 and DDC pumps, of which there are several SKUs. They're not cheap, but trusting a cheap POS pump to cool hardware worth thousands is an astoundingly stupid idea.

I'd also like to live in your world where low volume CNC machined parts cost pennies. Maybe I just haven't smoked enough crack.

Jeez dude do you not understanda WHY they're in financial trouble? Talk about missing the forest for the trees.

They bought from their suppliers 8 sizes of radiators, with three thicknesses, two flow types and two different colors. Do...you...see the problem?

And it's 2024, you can buy very high quality water pumps that move what, a few gallons an minute max, for like $20. They're used in 100s of industries, with "custom PC waterloops" probably being the smallest of all. Go buy an agricultural water pump. If it dies, you can lose thousands of seedlings equalling thousands of dollars. It's not some new hot tech, it's a water pump. Same goes for the "custom cnc machined" accessories. Do you think that custom PC water loops are the only industry that...pumps water through plastic tubes and fittings that CANNOT leak, no matter what? You can literally buy them at the hardware store. You can literally buy them at your local Brew'N'Grow / weed growing store.

But yes, I'm the one smoking crack, not the company that offered 128 different fan/radiator options. Only the most discerning PC Gamer will know that their green X-Flow 360mm medium thickness radiator is better than the blue U-Flow 240mm heavy thickness radiator on my other gaming PC (mostly because the older PC's radiators are full of fur and cigarette ash). Maybe research hydroponics and stop overpaying for bog standard equipment.

And yes, I'll freely admit I don't know much about watercooling these days. It was fun 25-30 years ago when overclocking actually mattered (going from 133mhz to 155mhz!). These days, either you use air, an AIO or you build a custom loop because you want to show it off or enjoy the hobby. I'm well over that phase, a Noctua and no OC if perfectly fine by me.

 

[Dantte]

Lets also not forget the recent Igor's Lab testing show EKWB is lying about the materials used in their products. Which BTW, the EKWB website still has NOT updated to be truthful. So on top of their financial woes, they are also operating illegally in accordance with US Commerce law (ie knowingly false advertising)... their card has been punched!

 

[woe2you]

And this is how you go out of business with a small volume / massive product catalogue business. They didn't need to cater to every single possible fan size, consumers should fit their build around what's available and if they really want something custom, make it themselves.

If they don't offer those rad sizes, consumers would just go and buy them from one of the dozen or so other manufacturers who do offer them and aren't going broke because of it. If offering more than three different radiators was enough to send a company broke Alphacool would have gone out of business a long time ago, because if a fan size between 40mm and 200mm exists, they make rads for it.

Jeez dude do you not understanda WHY they're in financial trouble? Talk about missing the forest for the trees.

They bought from their suppliers 8 sizes of radiators, with three thicknesses, two flow types and two different colors. Do...you...see the problem?

The... radiator... explanation... you... pulled... out... of... your.... arse... holds... precisely... zero... merit. No matter how many ellipses you put between the words, it's still horseshit. EK's radiator offerings are not some wild extravagance, they're the norm in 2024. Hell, they've been the norm for at least ten years.

If any product is a problem, it's far more likely to be monoblocks that fit precisely one motherboard and are paperweights on the shelf when that board goes EOL.

And it's 2024, you can buy very high quality water pumps that move what, a few gallons an minute max, for like $20. They're used in 100s of industries, with "custom PC waterloops" probably being the smallest of all. Go buy an agricultural water pump.

Link one. Just one. Here are the requirements:

* Costs $20 (this one's your fault, but at least you've raised your bid from "pennies")
* Runs on 12v DC
* At least 3m of head pressure
* At least 1000l/h of flow
* At least 50k hour MTBF at 25c

And also because it's not 25 years ago and people these days don't want their PCs to look and sound like a diesel generator:

* No louder than the fans
* Fits unobtrusively in a regular ATX mid tower (or smaller)
* Doesn't look like shit

Can't wait to see what you come up with, whether it's a magical unicorn pump or an admission that you shouldn't be loudly having opinions based on assumptions that are a quarter of a century out of date.

 

[CactusBuilder]

I think we can all agree their financial difficulties stem from multiple issues, not just one product, type of product or product line. And again, left me emphasize that I do not and have not ever claimed to be some custom water loop guru. I read articles here and there but I would:

A) never push some crazy voltage/OC or spend the money to buy some water cooled RTX 4090 with the EK water block attached, along with all of the other shit that could catastrophically fail with no warning.

B) never bother to build custom water cooling loops for for my CPU, M.2, VRMs or whatever other stuff these companies claim an extra 10fps is worth.

If they don't offer those rad sizes, consumers would just go and buy them from one of the dozen or so other manufacturers who do offer them and aren't going broke because of it. If offering more than three different radiators was enough to send a company broke Alphacool would have gone out of business a long time ago, because if a fan size between 40mm and 200mm exists, they make rads for it.

Do you have some inside information that their massive radiator catalogue wasn't part of their financial difficulties, or are you talking out of your arse bud? Besides, it was just one example of the (too) many products they sold and despite not having the customer base to buy them.

Can we at least agree that they were buying more inventory than they were selling, seeing as they owe a bunch of suppliers? And it looks like people ARE buying from other companies like Alphacool, since ya know, they're doing ok,

If any product is a problem, it's far more likely to be monoblocks that fit precisely one motherboard and are paperweights on the shelf when that board goes EOL.

This was actually my original post, pasted below

. EK seemed to always have a custom waterblock for every x80, x80ti and x90 NVidia GPU, plus they were making or partnering with motherboard manufacturers to sell $800 mobos that had two ports covering some VRMs. The last one I saw didn't even touch the M.2 drives (which are the most obvious to me, even my Ryzen 5800 mobo has all M.2 slots sharing a big metal heat sink when it's clamped down. Of course it didn't touch the CPU, the chipset, the USB/Firewire VRMs, or a whole host of other things. I'm sure one or two whales bough it and they have a warehouse with 8 left. And what to do with a bunch of waterblocks for a RTX 2080 or RTX 3080 that's been collecting dust? I assume they were stuck plastic and metal to be melted down at best, entire cards that cost $1,500 at worst. Honest question, did any of these ever go on sale a year or two later? Or was it just more "depreciation"? And I never really herard about them regarding AIO's, maybe that's my ignorance but I only ever saw their waterblock products being hyped online. The market has changed drastically over the past 10 years.

I'm guessing they

1. Got in over their head trying to make these stupid expensive $800 motherboards that just cool down VRMs (big woop)
2. Got their lunch eaten when people stopped building their own water cooling setups and just went with a simple and safe AIO.

As for your water pump, not going to waste my time looking at shit I'm not going to buy. If you don't think you can buy a small water pump on alibaba for $20 then you're better off just sticking to kits anyway. Here's a pump on Amazon for under $40 that looks to match your specs. Given that, I'm sure there are cheaper options if you spend more than 30 seconds looking. For actual DIY's look into PEX piping to not get ripped off, just make sure no metal amalgamtions form from using different metals.

https://www.amazon.com/Cooling-Thread-Computer-3000RPM-Dissipation/dp/B09HGBP4GJ

Here's one for $22.39.
https://www.amazon.com/Water-Cooling-Thread-System-Computer/dp/B0BQQ7BTV5

 

[woe2you]

You satisfied about half the list of requirements with those two.

I'm not sure what would be shorter, the life expectancy of those pumps or the pop-up brands they're sold under. One more time: the pump is the most important moving part in the PC and you absolutely do not want to entrust your components to an unreliable POS. Using a cheap no-name pump is like using a cheap no-name PSU. Every reputable watercooling company on the planet resells Xylem pumps for a reason.