EKWB Lays Off 25% of Workforce in Anticipation of Weaker Water Block Demand

Tsing

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EKWB, one of the world's best-known premium liquid cooling solutions providers, has decided to lay off a quarter of its employees from its headquarters in Slovenia. A statement shared by the company can reveal that the decision had to do with weaker demand; apparently, it is a lot harder to get enthusiasts to spend their hard-earned cash on water blocks these days.

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That sounds like a big number, but if you only employ 4 people, it doesn't take much.

Also, couldn't have anything to do with the fact that people couldn't reasonably buy new hardware for most of the past 2 years.

Still, feel sorry for the folks, don't wish it on anyone. But it's a niche inside of a niche, and DIY PC gaming in general has been hit hard recently.
 
I think the block sales are definitely impacted negatively by the hardware supply constraints. This was especially problematic for GPU sales which saw GPU's largely unavailable to the general public for more than a year. I'm not going to buy a waterblock for a card I can't buy.
 
We'll see what happens when the 4090s roll out. If they're as power hungry as rumors suggest there could be a huge new market for blocks.

I'm bummed for them though.
 
Peter_Brosdahl said:
If they're as power hungry as rumors suggest there could be a huge new market for blocks.
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Huge market for a product destined for a very small market share. Not sure I'd stake my career around that.
 
Brian_B said:
Huge market for a product destined for a very small market share. Not sure I'd stake my career around that.
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For sure, but at this point, I'd bet the whole upper stack of NV and AMD cards is going to be power-hungry moving forward. It's not like they've got any incentive not to be.
 
Peter_Brosdahl said:
For sure, but at this point, I'd bet the whole upper stack of NV and AMD cards is going to be power-hungry moving forward. It's not like they've got any incentive not to be.
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Yeah, but they will come with coolers from the factory able to handle that - be it triple slots, AIOs, hybrids, or stock water blocks.

The ~aftermarket~ market for blocks won't appreciably change or get bigger just because the TDP got higher - I think it will stay about where it's always been. A small handful of enthusiasts willing to break their $1-$3k card to get better frames and push some boundaries.

Now, if an AIB or someone were to contract through EKWB to provide that solution - that would be a big deal (well, as big as the market gets I suppose, maybe a few thousand for a particular SKU?). But I don't know if that's likely to occur, given that most AIBs have the resources to just do that in house and you'd really just be licensing any proprietary design (not likely) and/or the brand name (while we recognize it, outside of our community, not many other people are going to)
 
Sad to hear it but miners arnt building massive cooling loops for their undervolted cards.
 
I generally like their products. I hope it doesn't impact my ability to upgrade my blocks in the near future.
 
Brian_B said:
Now, if an AIB or someone were to contract through EKWB to provide that solution
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It's been known to happen. It's been known to happen but I know you're right about the rest. I just don't want to see them, or any other provider in this market, go under.
 
It's such a limited market already. I wonder if they are pairing down in preparation for a buyout from someone like Corsair?
 
Grimlakin said:
It's such a limited market already. I wonder if they are pairing down in preparation for a buyout from someone like Corsair?
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I wondered about that too. Another possibility is that they over-extended themselves and as Brian and Dan said, the supply chain caused revenue issues when nobody was able to buy a card. Also, between Turing and Ampere, they really branched out with a lot of designs for AIB cards. I've posted quite a few stories on them and they've also been putting a larger focus on full block configurations. I've got a feeling their financials got a bit upside down with all these factors.
 
EKWB has been partnering with MSI a bit for 'full coverage' blocks - thing is, they're not really that great from what I've seen, as VRM cooling isn't really necessary as Z690 boards are so overbuilt, and overclocking Alder Lake borders on madness.

For GPU blocks... well, they're pretty proud of those.

Only EKWB part I have on the shelf for my 12700k / 3080 12GB build is the CPU block.
 
Custom water loops were already a niche of a niche, I was surprised a company could survive focusing on just that even before the hardware shortages.
 
MadMummy76 said:
Custom water loops were already a niche of a niche, I was surprised a company could survive focusing on just that even before the hardware shortages.
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Also a growing niche with CPU and GPU power usage skyrocketing. And as always, better cooling can also lower the noise floor considerably.
 
I think the later mellenial and current gen x people are kind of it other than those trying to enter into streaming content.
 
What I've found recently is that if someone isn't actively telling the news to someone, or someone isn't influenced into seeking it, they don't care and have too many other things going in their lives to worry about. Be it distractions or survival. I'd say we're living in a state of social cancer at this point.
 
MadMummy76 said:
I think PC enthusiast is a shrinking hobby to begin with. How many under 20 people do you think are reading sites like this?
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I agree, but not because of age groups but because the console and mobile arenas have made gains that are "acceptable" to the masses. Display tech and various other shortcuts allow for so many compromises only those with experienced eyes can hone in quickly on what's missing.
 
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