EKWB issued a public apology for the below-expectations performance of its EK-Supremacy EVO Threadripper waterblock and X399 motherboard monoblocks. The company is offering a discount voucher to owners of the former, and issuing a new cold plate to owners of the latter.
Last year, EKWB launched several waterblocks for AMD’s X399 platform. Among them are the EK-Supremacy EVO Threadripper Edition CPU waterblock and several X399 motherboard monoblocks. Unfortunately, several reviews, such as those from [H]ardOCP and Hardware.info, have found the performance of the EVO Threadripper to be lacking. [H]ardOCP surmised that the block’s cold plate (pictured above) was to blame, and that its design was unsuitable for covering the large surface area of Threadripper CPUs.
EKWB recognized this reaction and is looking to fix the situation. The company has admitted that the cold plate of the EVO Threadripper, which is shared with EKWB's X399 motherboard monoblocks, resulted in performance that was below expectations. Consequently, EKWB has designed a new cold plate (pictured above) with a microchannel pattern that covers a significantly larger portion of Threadripper’s surface area.
Apparently EKWB knew about the situation earlier than its announcement might imply, because it chose to delay shipments of some of its X399 motherboard monoblocks until the new cold plate design could be used. The design of these motherboard monoblocks is such that the cold plate is a detachable, independent piece. For owners of the EK-FB ASUS X399 Gaming RGB motherboard monoblock--the only monoblock that was shipped with the old cold plate--EKWB is offering a free cold plate upgrade kit. They only have to contact EKWB support to request the kit and follow a video tutorial to replace their waterblock’s cold plate.
Unfortunately, the cold plate upgrade kit can’t be used on the EVO Threadripper CPU waterblock due to different mounting mechanisms. For owners of these waterblocks, and there’s likely a lot more of them then there are of the ASUS monoblock, EKWB is offering a $25 discount voucher. If you purchased this waterblock before November 24, 2017, then you can request a voucher, also from EKWB support.
Although it could be argued that EKWB could have made a redesigned version of the cold plate in the EVO Threadripper waterblock as well, it’s still nice to see the company doing something to compensate customers who have come to expect a certain level of quality and performance. A CPU waterblock is significantly smaller than a motherboard monoblock, so its cold plate makes up a higher percentage of its cost. EKWB might have determined that replacing a major cost component wouldn’t have made sense, and thus chose to offer discount vouchers instead.
EKWB has one of the most comprehensive catalogs of PC watercooling parts. Its offerings range from radiators to full-cover waterblocks for non-reference GPUs from major manufacturers. Most recently, the company entered the AIO watercooling market with kits comprised of a mix of custom and universal parts.
