EK announces leadership changes, New RGB monoblock and MLC Phoenix AIO.

EK Water Blocks have announced that their leadership is going through some major changes.

“CHANGES IN EKWB: New management and new execution
Fast growing company EKWB has new CEO and CTO. Executive powers were taken over by Edvard König, founder and owner, and Matjaz Krc, his business partner from the start, business angel and veteran in turnaround management. The reason behind owners decision was that views on execution of company’s vision grew apart and changes were necessary for future growth and adaptation to new and fast market challenges. The company has currently 90 employees, from that 15 people in top and middle management and 7 in R&D.

Changes are opening the door for faster execution and more reliable launch of new products which was one of the biggest complaints from the market. Biggest changes are happening in two main areas: R&D and communication. The former needs to improve and that is why it is in revision and development. Regarding R&D we want to point out that the development team is already strong and EKWB is in the middle of its expansion – internally and with external partners – which will considerably accelerate the pace of development of new products. Strict project management will be put in place to manage time plans accordingly. EKWB’s main advantage and basis for company’s success was always the whole team and this is our core and pride. EKWB is putting a lot of effort in creating environment where the world’s top talent can do the best work of their lives.”

This is just a part of the email that was sent to the TechPowerUp team by EK.  This was rather surprising and out of the blue.  EK’s performance has been strong in the last few years as they have focused on bringing a lot of new products to market and aesthetics over performance.  We believe that EK has grown a lot as a result and that Eddy and Matjaz would be happy.  Perhaps they were, and perhaps they weren’t.  Certainly there are always differences of opinion as to which direction to take a company.  Now it’s well known that there are some “strong” personalities at EK and the people who have left are not just limited to the CEO and CTO.  The fact that EK stress the number of employees that they have means that they are trying to counter the idea that the key people left.  Of course this raises the spectre of a new company forming with those who have left.  Perhaps those who left are tired of doing the work and not getting a share in the reward as we’ve never heard of any stock being given out to employees.

However in the meantime EK are still launching products.  With the loss of engineering talent this may slow down although EK have of course stated that it won’t.  Proof is always in the pudding.  EK also released their first ever monoblock for motherboards manufactured by ASRock.

This monoblock was designed to work with the following ASRock boards:

• ASRock X299 OC Formula
• ASRock X299 Taichi
• ASRock Fatal1ty X299 Professional Gaming i9
• ASRock X299 Killer SLI/ac
• ASRock Fatal1ty X299 Gaming K6

Like always, using a waterblock with Intels X299 motherboards is useful, as they tend to draw a lot of power and put a big load on VRM circuitry. By actively cooling the VRMs, the CPU may experience less thermal throttling and may allow for a larger overclock.

Pricing and availability:

The monoblock is available from the EK Webshop and it has the following price:

EK MLC(Modular Liquid Cooling) platform was announced way back at the begining of this year. It had the title of “Soon” for a long time.

It finally got released.

EK MLC( called MLC Phoenix) is a line of Modular Liquid Cooling products made with “modularity, performance and simple use in mind”. This is similar to it’s predecessor the “Predator” which was specifically designed more as an “All in One” unit that was still expandable with pre filled GPU blocks.

It consists of three main parts:

CPU Cooling Module

CPU cooling is done by a so called “module” which, at its heart, contains of an EK Supremacy cooling engine.

The CPU module comes in two variants:

• EK-MLC Phoenix CPU Module – Intel/AM4 is a pre-filled and pre-assembled CPU cooling module water block designed specifically for the most popular Intel and AMD processors. This includes the support for Intel LGA-1150/1151/1155/1156, Intel LGA-2011(-3) and Intel LGA-2066. As for AMD based platforms, AM4 socket compatibility is assured.

• EK-MLC Phoenix CPU Module – TR4 is a pre-filled and pre-assembled CPU cooling module water block designed for HEDT AMD® Ryzen™ Threadripper™ processor. This CPU cooling module is compatible with AMD SocketTR4 (Socket SP3r2) and AMD Socket SP3 based motherboards.

Both are connected with EKs QDC(Quick DisConnect) fittings to another module.

Radiator Cooling Module 

Disapating the heat is left to the Radiator Cooling Module, which as the name suggests encorporates the radiator with EKs SPC pump and new Vardar-EVO fans with start stop function. The radiators sizes vary from 120-360, 140-280 mm sizes.

GPU Cooling Module 

The GPU Cooling Module is the part that is in charge for cooling your GPU. It is connected with a pair of QDCs that allow easy connecting. The module is based of EKs standard GPU waterblock design and it comes with wide range of GPUs covered.

Pricing and availability

EK-MLC Phoenix is available in limited quantities and available for pre-order. All the orders will start shipping on Monday, 4th of December 2017.

The models and parts of MLC lineup, with pricing is provided by EK bellow:

As can be seen the price is significantly higher than the EK predator.  While this may bring water cooling to those afraid of building something custom, our advice at Extreme Rigs would be that if you are afraid of building something custom then maybe you shouldn’t be buying something like this at all – either learn to watercool properly so you can maintain and expand your loop properly or stick with an “all in one” unit.

Sources: TechPowerUp;EKWB