We hadn’t done a water cooling news update in a while so let’s do a bit of recap work.
The big news was of course the FrozenCPU drama. For those who didn’t hear, the US reseller closed it’s doors and stopped answering the phones. A former employee claimed the owner had fired the whole team and was going through some addicition issues. It was not clear at the time if the employee was disgruntled as the owner, Mark Friga Jr., issued a statement saying that they were working with only a skeleton crew and were planning to reopen. Since then a report came to light that last year Mark was allegedly arrested for driving while under the influence of drugs after crashing into a lamp post. This certainly gives credence to the original story. Since then Primochill have officially pulled out from FrozenCPU, restarted their online store and have actively advertised for new resellers. Our thoughts are with all of those who lost their jobs, and those who lost money from all of this. Hopefully there is a happy ending.
Today EK finally launched the Rampage V Extreme Monoblock. This is about time as it’s been “in the works forever”. As you’d expect it’s a looker:
Personally we find it a bit sexier than Bitspower’s concept drawing:
Bitspower’s design is a bit more clunky because it takes the Summit CPU block and a mosfet and south bridge block and puts a bridge on top of them all. EK on the other hand only reuse the cooling engine from the supremacy and so aren’t sandwiching two blocks together. You also get the nickel plexi going to the south bridge also.
It’s clear that there is definitely heavy competition now directed between the two. EK used to be the only company offering water blocks for non reference cards but now EK and Bitspower have fleshed out their line ups to cover anything that the other has. Take for example Bitspower’s new acrylic terminal bridge:
This one looks strangely similar to EK’s design. On the other hand EK’s AF rotary adapters also look quite familiar – just change the knurling:
Both companies launched 970 Strix blocks:
Bitspower even made a Galax HOF block which EK neglected to do this generation:
And guess what it looks a lot like the EK 780 HOF block:
In addition Bitspower have also launched colored backplates for the 980:
Oh wait – that was the EK, this is the Bitspower:
Are we spotting a pattern here?
EK have also launched the 980 Classified block recently:
Bitspower have yet to do this though. Note that this does not fit the K1ngP1n edition which is supposedly getting a block too. We imagine it will be similar, though we’d love to see them do something quite unique for it.
In addition EK launched another low cost CPU block – the Supremacy MX:
Given that EK already has done a few low cost CPU blocks we can assume this one improves performance without quite going to the level of the EVO. There has been some criticism that it looks a bit like a XSPC Raystorm. Eitherway we’re not particular fans of the look and wish it was more aggressive in trying to create a new look that was different to the EVO.
We also saw a VRM block for the MSI X99 boards:
EK also bizarrely launched some new barbs. Generally I think most people buy barbs in order to save money over more costly compression fittings. These are however color coordinated premium barbs and that confuses me:
They are new and interesting, but I’m just not sure who would buy them. On the plus side they can be tightened with a hex/allen key.
It’s clear that both these EK and Bitspower want to dominate the scene, and the rest of the competition is looking a bit laid back and leisurely in comparison. Take for example Watercool – whose Heatkiller IV block was finally announced after years of development a few months back. It’s still not available, and the GTX980 blocks have been postponed as a result too. All this competition will no doubt be good for the consumer, but we’d like to make sure that companies differentiate themselves and innovate. It’s not always clear who is the offender as we have no inside knowledge as to when each design was started, but recently it does seem like Bitspower might be the one behaving more badly.
That’s all for now but stay tuned because *very very* soon our huge radiator round up is going to be ready!
