EKWB apologises for Threadripper water block, monoblock design flaws

Liquid-cooling specialist EK Water Blocks (EKWB) has formally apologised for the performance of its EK-Supremacy Evo Threadripper water blocks and X399 monoblocks, and is offering partial refunds and upgrades by way of apology.

Designed to be paired with AMD's Zen-based Threadripper many-core processors and selected X399 motherboards, EK Water Blocks' designs look at first glance to be perfect for eking the best performance out of an otherwise thermally throttled system. Unfortunately, that turns out not to be the case thanks to design flaws in their shared cold-plate designs EKWB has blamed on 'an oversight from our side almost a year ago.

'The performance of EK-Supremacy EVO Threadripper Edition CPU water block and the X399 monoblocks, which are based on the same cold plate design, are not up to EK standards so action had to be taken,' the company explains in its announcement. 'For this reason, the EK-Supremacy EVO Threadripper Edition CPU water blocks are on a fair discount for some time and the launch of three X399 monoblocks was held off until the issue with the cold plate is fixed.'

For those who have already purchased one of the faulty products, EKWB is offering a pair of solutions. Owners of the EK-FB Asus ROG ZE RGB monoblock, the only X399 monoblock to be released with the faulty cold-plate design, can contact EKWB support and receive a free upgraded cold plate, which the company claims brings the performance up to where it should be. Sadly, owners of the EK-Supremacy Evo Threadripper Edition CPU water block don't have that option - 'it does not share the same mounting mechanism as the monoblock,' the company explains - and instead is being offered a €25/$25 coupon code providing the block was purchased prior to the discovery of the flaw and subsequent discounting on November 24th 2017.

'Our engineering team is hard at work with developing a new CPU water block which will be specifically designed for HEDT AMD Ryzen Threadripper processors,' EKWB concludes. 'We hope that the partial refund will compensate for the lack of performance of the EK-Supremacy Evo Threadripper Edition CPU water block and that you, our customers, will put your trust in our upcoming products.'