EK Issues Apology For Threadripper Waterblocks

[86 5.0L]

Eddy fucking customers, wow, that's never happened before!

You would think people learn their lesson...

 

[__hollywood|meow]

replacement plates for the monoblock & partial refund is a hell of a lot better than wat they did to gary (sidewinder) years ago regarding the nickel plating debacle. i guess im in the minority of folks who view this an a PR improvement from EK. meh. watever, im not about to buy their block, nor defend them. carry on gents

 

[DTN107]

Wow EK...

Didn't EK entire upper-management ran off to Corsair recently?

If so, this half-ass apology isn't helping me rebuild my customer loyalty with them.

 

[serpretetsky]

they rushed and adapted a design that is ineffective for TR just to get something on the market.

I think that all falls under "They made a waterblock that performs worse than other waterblocks".

I mean people here are talking about class action lawsuits and that the company should give them free blocks? I dont get it. Can I get an upgrade on my Nissan Sentra? It doesn't perform as well as some of the competitors. I think they might have rushed it to market. I'd like a new free one.

 

[pendragon1]

if you were sold a 200hp car then found out its actually only 100hp and they said oops our bad and all they did was offer $1000 off the purchase of a new vehicle, wouldn't you be a bit pissed?!

 

[serpretetsky]

if you were sold a 200hp car then found out its actually only 100hp and they said oops our bad and all they did was offer $1000 off the purchase of a new vehicle, wouldn't you be a bit pissed?!

yes, i would be angry that i was lied to.... were we?

 

[Tsumi]

yes, i would be angry that i was lied to.... were we?

EK's marketing from [H]OCP review:

With AMD releasing their new X399 chipset based HEDT processors, came the need for a water block with a larger cold plate contact surface. The primary goal in designing the new EK-Supremacy EVO Threadripper Edition water block was to cover the entire IHS of the newly released HEDT AMD Ryzen Threadripper processor. With a dense micro-fin structure that counts 52 grooves with a spacing of 0.25mm apart, the EK-Supremacy EVO Threadripper Edition water block offers the best possible cooling performance! The water block uses award-winning EK-Supremacy EVO cooling engine with specialized jet insert and jet plate combination to ensure best possible cooling for X399 chipset based CPUs.

I would say yes, we were lied to. Not only it was not the best possible cooling, it was the worst waterblock by a large margin.

 

[pendragon1]

^ yup id say so. this part in particular; "The primary goal in designing the new EK-Supremacy EVO Threadripper Edition water block was to cover the entire IHS" when the block didn't really cover the whole IHS or even all the cores.

 

[Kardonxt]

I don't understand why EK still has such a following after the plating fiasco and how poorly they handled it. I'm out of the custom loop game but would never buy an ek product if I got back in.

 

[FrgMstr]

^ yup id say so. this part in particular; "The primary goal in designing the new EK-Supremacy EVO Threadripper Edition water block was to cover the entire IHS" when the block didn't really cover the whole IHS or even all the cores.

To be technically correct here, the cold plate on the block was extended to cover the "full" Threadripper IHS, however the microfin coverage pattern was not changed from previous EK block designs for its footprint to cover the dies fully on Threadripper. Also, if you read the review, you will see that our results are taken after rotating the coldplate 90 degrees so that the flow path moved across the short distance across the dies. The block in its default configuration actually repeated failed our test.

And while this is a bit off topic, it upsets me that EK refused us a sample when we asked. Originally they said it was because we did not post its PR statements in our news. Then it came back and said it was due to all the samples already being seeded with reviewers. NONE of those reviewers ever did a full and proper review of that block. Probably the reviewer with the biggest exposure is JayzTwoCents, but assuredly there were others. This gives me the opinion that all those reviewers are "in the pocket" of EK. I think that is another thing you should keep in mind when you see EK product reviews. When we have problems with a product in reviews, we tell you, in the review. The fact that no reviews ever came or issues with the product was even discussed by those reviewers seeded with the product leads me to think that those sites are truly not concerned with their readers purchasing a bad product. That is 100% my personal opinion, I have no proof to back up those statements, but it surely makes me question EK's relationship with the reviewers that it samples product to.

 

[thesmokingman]

EK did a serious job of silencing criticisms with the exception of [H].

 

[serpretetsky]

I would say yes, we were lied to. Not only it was not the best possible cooling, it was the worst waterblock by a large margin.

I can see where you are coming from.

I ignore everything companies say about there product unless it's hard specs. "Best performance cooling" to me gets about the same attention as walking into a pizza shop that says "best pizza in town". I'm curious if you can get anywhere in court arguing the statement below is false advertising.

The water block uses award-winning EK-Supremacy EVO cooling engine with specialized jet insert and jet plate combination to ensure best possible cooling for X399 chipset based CPUs.

As far as I'm concerned, it's just a crappy product, like the millions of other crappy products out there floating around.

 

[garth_Hendy]

Hello,

Unfortunately I was sucked in to the whole if you want water cooling EKWB is the way to go. Boy did I get suckered in to mediocre products.

When I got the EK block the plate wasn't screwed together properly and was loose, you could move the bottom plate around quite obviously from the top section where the pipes go. I am not sure if this standard for EK but the XSPC block did not do this. I was really hoping it didn't leak... it didn't though.

I also paid for 50 USD shipping... as I never knew the products were coming from EU so I also got hit by the import taxes. My fault on that part, but it didn't help the overall EK experience.

I swapped out the TR4 EK block with the XSPC Neo and it was day and night differences. I run the 1950x at 4.05ghz @ 1.325v and on average sits around 52c under full load when baking lighting in Unreal Engine 4 for our game. The EK block did about 62c at 3.9ghz @ 1.325v.

I tried selling it online as cheap as I could without basically giving it away, no one bought it, I think the lowest I went was around 40 USD. I saw the letter of apology on the EK site and decided to take them up on their offer of the partial refund, I didn't want a coupon code as I will never buy their product again.

Low and behold.... they changed the wording on their letter from coupon or partial refund to a partial refund in the forum of a coupon. I showed them a few links to news sites who copied their letter before they changed it and asked for the refund only, and they refused to give it to me, I only got a coupon code.

Feels a bit greasy to me.

 

[garth_Hendy]

Oh and it is really weird that no major youtube hardware guys like Jay or Linus or Pauls, etc are not talking about the EK apology at all. But they'll talk about why Nvidia released too many Titan Xp cards in row.

I am usually one to roll my eyes at conspiracy theorists but there is something fishy going on.

 

[FrgMstr]

Oh and it is really weird that no major youtube hardware guys like Jay or Linus or Pauls, etc are not talking about the EK apology at all. But they'll talk about why Nvidia released too many Titan Xp cards in row.

I am usually one to roll my eyes at conspiracy theorists but there is something fishy going on.

And all those guys got this block more than a month before we purchased ours. No reviews on it ever.....hmmmm. Nothing to see here, move along. I think that there were a LOT of folks aware of just how bad this block was and would not say anything so as to not harm their relationship with EK. Remember that when those guys are telling you what to buy.

 

[Tsumi]

I can see where you are coming from.

I ignore everything companies say about there product unless it's hard specs. "Best performance cooling" to me gets about the same attention as walking into a pizza shop that says "best pizza in town". I'm curious if you can get anywhere in court arguing the statement below is false advertising.

As far as I'm concerned, it's just a crappy product, like the millions of other crappy products out there floating around.

Pizza taste is subjective and opinion-based. Cooling performance is objective with hard numbers. When car makers make claims like "best in class legroom," there is always an asterisk explaining exactly what they are comparing.

Legality aside, watercooling is very much a niche community, and word travels. EK should be doing what they can to maintain goodwill in their core consumers, not alienate them. But hell, they got away with it once (nickel plating issues), they'll probably get away with it again.

 

[Nimisys]

But hell, they got away with it once (nickel plating issues), they'll probably get away with it again.

If they put out a good looking block that outperforms the others by a couple degrees, this too will be forgotten. not by you specifically, but by enthusiasts as a whole. we are a fickle bunch, easy to piss off, and also willing to ignore/forgive past transgressions for the slightest edge, whether its meaningful or not.

 

[Tsumi]

If they put out a good looking block that outperforms the others by a couple degrees, this too will be forgotten. not by you specifically, but by enthusiasts as a whole. we are a fickle bunch, easy to piss off, and also willing to ignore/forgive past transgressions for the slightest edge, whether its meaningful or not.

True that, though I would argue it is far less about the slightest edge and more about marketing. EK is doing exactly what Intel did in the 90s and early 2000s: making sure that EK was the only name people knew about. I used to frequent OCN, and there seemed to be EK sponsored builds every two or three months. In comparison, I have yet to see an Aquacomputer or Watercool sponsored build. The silence from "reviewers" about this is further proof that EK's ethics are just as bad as Intel's, if not worse.

 

[garth_Hendy]

LOL, not a chance those guys would risk spoiling their relationship with EK. Especially that jayztwocents guy, does a bunch of fancy watercooled builds like they're nothing... because he's got hundreds if not thousands of dollars in free hardware/fittings sitting on a shelf.

"Look at this build we did, it's just a simple blah blah blah" doesn't mention the $300 in free fittings he pulled off the shelf to just be able to mix and match for whatever tubing/angles/etc. he wants, never gives a bad review of a product from a large company, and even when he has obvious visual problems with things that he can't hide(like some bad dyes and such) continues to make excuses...

Like when Jay said he'd never review another AMD product unless he bought it himself? Then proceeds to review the products sent to him from AMD
He just makes Youtube videos of liquid flowing slowly now, very rarely does he do water cooling builds.

 

[Merc1138]

Like when Jay said he'd never review another AMD product unless he bought it himself? Then proceeds to review the products sent to him from AMD
He just makes Youtube videos of liquid flowing slowly now, very rarely does he do water cooling builds.

lol, did he say that? I suppose it's possible, this is the same guy that thought drilling a hole through a motherboard to make a bracket fit was a good idea.

As far as his watercooling builds, some of them do look alright but at the same time if I had $2k in sponsored fittings on a shelf, got the blocks, rads, and everything else for free, and just had to provide my own tubing some of the time... I could make some pretty nice looking builds too. Even that Terry Crews thing... he griped that nvidia released slightly faster cards and had them provide new cards because he took 6 months on the build, like Terry Crews is some charity case.

The rest are pretty bad too(Paul, Linus, and the others) regarding their willingness to just ignore crap hardware because they got it free and don't want to make their sponsors look bad.

 

[garth_Hendy]

At least Linus sticks it to AMD and intel for doing stupid things, I do give him credit for that. But the rest aren't reviewers they are product demonstrators.

 

[noko]

At least Linus sticks it to AMD and intel for doing stupid things, I do give him credit for that. But the rest aren't reviewers they are product demonstrators.

What I hate on so many of the videos is "If you like this video please hit the likey and subscribe (because you have no brain and I am so badass and so you will be inundated with endless YouTube pop ups and advertising from the same very companies that bribe . . . )". Thank God! Kyle doesn't do that shit. When I hear those words or anything similar - unlike/unsubscribe if subscribed.

 

[FrgMstr]

What I hate on so many of the videos is "If you like this video please hit the likey and subscribe (because you have no brain and I am so badass and so you will be inundated with endless YouTube pop ups and advertising from the same very companies that bribe . . . )". Thank God! Kyle doesn't do that shit. When I hear those words or anything similar - unlike/unsubscribe if subscribed.

Please hit the like button or subscribe!!! I figure [H]'ers are smart enough to figure that out for themselves.

 

[nycdarkness]

dont buy the new blocks. The revised plate still sucks.