Optimus and EK reviews at TPU. I hope we are not seeing a trend.

Smoked Brisket

Smoked Brisket

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Two signature water blocks from two companies at different ends of the spectrum. Both offerings look fantastic and perform great, with thermal performance at top of the charts. The problem? They both cost over $200, with EK's magnitude edging towards 300 at $270! I like these products but pricing for WC components seems to be skyrocketing. Dont get me started on what certain companies are charging for reservoirs without pumps or mass produced manifolds. The reviews can be found here:

https://www.techpowerup.com/review/ek-quantum-magnitude-cpu-water-block/8.html
https://www.techpowerup.com/review/optimus-signature-v2-cpu-block/8.html
 
Smoked Brisket said:
Two signature water blocks from two companies at different ends of the spectrum. Both offerings look fantastic and perform great, with thermal performance at top of the charts. The problem? They both cost over $200, with EK's magnitude edging towards 300 at $270! I like these products but pricing for WC components seems to be skyrocketing. Dont get me started on what certain companies are charging for reservoirs without pumps or mass produced manifolds. The reviews can be found here:

https://www.techpowerup.com/review/ek-quantum-magnitude-cpu-water-block/8.html
https://www.techpowerup.com/review/optimus-signature-v2-cpu-block/8.html
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Jeez.

I mean, if they are doing something truly stellar resulting in much improved temps over he competition, it might be justified but that is nuts.

The large Heatkiller IV Pro I bought for my Threadripper in December cost me $125 shipped from Germany.

If my price is going to more than double, there had better be a really good reason.

For me the comparison isn't valuable right now, as EK is not making a TR version of this block, but if we look at the standard sizes blocks the Heatkiller IV Pro ranges from $70 up to $118 on Amazon right now.

This EK block gets °1C better temp results in this one review, and costs between $209.99 and $269.99 with additional extras available that can raise the price even higher...

Is that 1°C worth an additional $130-$152?

I'd argue no. There may have been a time when a 1°C difference might have meant the difference between a stable max overclock and needing to clock lower, but even then this additional cost would have been difficult to justify.

Today I just don't see it making a difference to final results.
 
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The Magnitude is not a mass-market block. Optimus is quite a bit more expensive, but it's also a higher quality product than the rest you can see there. I wouldn't worry about having access to affordable blocks.
 
For SLI and small cases I see the need but for me, the performance benefit over an Arctic Accelero cooler isnt worth the price difference, especially with how often gfx cards are changed.
I've been running the same CPU waterblock (Swiftech Apogee XT) since my Core2 Duo, around 10 years! And its still decent.
Cant get that kinda value in the GPU market.
 
I think we can agree that Optimus appears to be a high quality product, but does the performance justify the dollars? This is not just about cpu blocks either. How many reservoirs are now on PPCS for 250 plus dollars? Fittings for 10~14? I have been able to reuse things over the past couple of years, but add up the cost of a real custom loop today. You are looking at upwards of 700 dollars on the cheap side. I know we can all go to Ali express and find decals here and there and get that price down. But that is not ideal and doesn’t help bring new people into this hobby.
 
Smoked Brisket said:
I think we can agree that Optimus appears to be a high quality product, but does the performance justify the dollars? This is not just about cpu blocks either. How many reservoirs are now on PPCS for 250 plus dollars? Fittings for 10~14? I have been able to reuse things over the past couple of years, but add up the cost of a real custom loop today. You are looking at upwards of 700 dollars on the cheap side. I know we can all go to Ali express and find decals here and there and get that price down. But that is not ideal and doesn’t help bring new people into this hobby.
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You think that's expensive, for us north of the border in Canada we get bent over all the time. I just did a simple EK soft tube build on a Canadian retailer (http://www.dazmode.com) and it was around 650 without shipping.

Optimus seems to be of the highest quality, aesthetically pleasing and made in the USA, if your looking for that, it's worth the price. Not to mention that sick warranty and if you take care of it, you can keep using it and it will still look and perform great from the sound of it
 
The difference between the two is the pressure drop. The Optimus block is tops for restriction and the EK is on par for the least restrictive. That should give one an idea of which is better. Though the value proposition flies out the window with the EK block. In that respect the Optimus block is almost a bargain if you have the head pressure.
 
When I made my 3950X build I went custom loop. Initially, I purchased a TT Pacific kit (2 actually, because I was going to watercool my 3950X and my other 2700X based system)

I paid $319 for each of the two kits and nether kit was actually usable. BOTH had defective fittings and horribly mangled insides of the water blocks. About the only part that wasn't screwed up was the tubing. Hell...the RPM sensor cable connector fell off of one of the pumps before I was even able to install it.

I ended up having to get all new fittings from Bitspower (who charge way too much for what you get) and, when I looked for replacement pumps I was shocked to find that just the pumps for the TT kits were $160 each. I ended up using one of the TT Pumps without the RPM sensor.

Watercooling has become far more expensive than my last custom loop and I won't go that route again. Ever. I saw a you tube video of a guy who made a custom AIO and I'll go that route next time I need to build a system. (and it'll still cost almost as much as a custom loop kit)
 
notarat said:
When I made my 3950X build I went custom loop. Initially, I purchased a TT Pacific kit (2 actually, because I was going to watercool my 3950X and my other 2700X based system)

I paid $319 for each of the two kits and nether kit was actually usable. BOTH had defective fittings and horribly mangled insides of the water blocks. About the only part that wasn't screwed up was the tubing. Hell...the RPM sensor cable connector fell off of one of the pumps before I was even able to install it.

I ended up having to get all new fittings from Bitspower (who charge way too much for what you get) and, when I looked for replacement pumps I was shocked to find that just the pumps for the TT kits were $160 each. I ended up using one of the TT Pumps without the RPM sensor.

Watercooling has become far more expensive than my last custom loop and I won't go that route again. Ever. I saw a you tube video of a guy who made a custom AIO and I'll go that route next time I need to build a system. (and it'll still cost almost as much as a custom loop kit)
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I feel like custom water cooling really only needs to be expensive once. Once you have built your first proper loop, upgrades and changes from that point on are relatively inexpensive, unless you are going for massive capacity increases, or something like that.


As far as these expensive blocks go, I don't feel like they are needed. Overclocking of CPU's is starting to become less and less of a thing. With my Threadripper 3960x it just didn't make sense to pursue it anymore. The automatic boosting of cores works much better than trying to manually overclock. And even with that, it always stays at a reasonable temp in my loop.

I feel like custom water loops today are really more about the GPU than they are the CPU. The CPU is really only along for the ride.

My main reason for watercooling is not really to hit higher clocks than I could without it, but to hit those clocks with out fans screaming at 100%. I like a silent system, and I can't imagine not having a custom loop anymore.
 
notarat said:
When I made my 3950X build I went custom loop. Initially, I purchased a TT Pacific kit (2 actually, because I was going to watercool my 3950X and my other 2700X based system)

I paid $319 for each of the two kits and nether kit was actually usable. BOTH had defective fittings and horribly mangled insides of the water blocks. About the only part that wasn't screwed up was the tubing. Hell...the RPM sensor cable connector fell off of one of the pumps before I was even able to install it.

I ended up having to get all new fittings from Bitspower (who charge way too much for what you get) and, when I looked for replacement pumps I was shocked to find that just the pumps for the TT kits were $160 each. I ended up using one of the TT Pumps without the RPM sensor.

Watercooling has become far more expensive than my last custom loop and I won't go that route again. Ever. I saw a you tube video of a guy who made a custom AIO and I'll go that route next time I need to build a system. (and it'll still cost almost as much as a custom loop kit)
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There are savings to be made if you go external.
I use a car heatercore as a radiator with 2x140mm fan and an Eheim pond pump, cheap 1/2" ID pipe.
Both are 15 years old and still going strong running 24/7. Pipe changed approx every 5 years.
 
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Nenu said:
There are savings to be made if you go external.
I use a car heatercore as a radiator with 2x140mm fan and an Eheim pond pump, cheap 1/2" ID pipe.
Both are 15 years old and still going strong running 24/7. Pipe changed approx every 5 years.
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Credit for going old school but I think the major draw for water cooling now is aesthetics and creating a unique design through tubing runs and a combination of different parts. I dont have access to any figures but with the amount of companies getting into it, water cooling seems more popular than it has ever been. However, I do think it is a fragile community and I would like to see some of these offerings be at a price that would encourage folks to try them out rather than keep using the same stuff again and again. I have really wanted to try a waterway manifold but jst cant justify 300 dollars for an aesthetic I am not sure I would like, and I am talking about a mass produced(well at least a repeated design) that doesnt even come with a pump.
 
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EK has serious QC issues and when you bring this to their attention they blame it on you. Optimus has a very superior block and has none of those issues. You get what you pay for. This is why nothing from EK that has metal touching water will make it into a build i do. Ive seen way to many issues.

Also for saving money people use Barrow fittings and get them in bulk from aliexpress. Seasoned and new people are all doing it so its not really as not ideal as its made out to be.
 
German Muscle said:
EK has serious QC issues and when you bring this to their attention they blame it on you. Optimus has a very superior block and has none of those issues. You get what you pay for. This is why nothing from EK that has metal touching water will make it into a build i do. Ive seen way to many issues.
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EK had that one issue with nickel plating almost a decade ago now.

I've had their nickel plated blocks in my system since 2016 now, without any issue. When I replaced the old Supremacy EVO with a Watercool Heatkiller IV Pro a couple of months ago when I went Threadripper, I opened it up to take a peek.

Still looks brand new inside

IMG_20191222_031647.jpg

The only recent issue they had was that they cut corners with their first Threadripper block, so it performed terribly, which is why I didn't use them for my TR build.

German Muscle said:
Also for saving money people use Barrow fittings and get them in bulk from aliexpress. Seasoned and new people are all doing it so its not really as not ideal as its made out to be.
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I'll never trust my system to Chinese junk.
 
Zarathustra[H] said:
EK had that one issue with nickel plating almost a decade ago now.

I've had their nickel plated blocks in my system since 2016 now, without any issue. When I replaced the old Supremacy EVO with a Watercool Heatkiller IV Pro a couple of months ago when I went Threadripper, I opened it up to take a peek.

Still looks brand new inside

View attachment 227293

The only recent issue they had was that they cut corners with their first Threadripper block, so it performed terribly, which is why I didn't use them for my TR build.



I'll never trust my system to Chinese junk.
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The problems with EK are reported to be more fundamental.
I have no experience, but are surely worth investigation?
 
They're going to milk early buyers and gradually lower the price.
 
Water cooling is becoming a more and more niche market. Koolance has nearly completely moved to industrial products and others are looking the same way. You can't have razor thin profits AND a small potential market. I don't like it but this is how it's going to be from now on.
 
KazeoHin said:
Water cooling is becoming a more and more niche market. Koolance has nearly completely moved to industrial products and others are looking the same way. You can't have razor thin profits AND a small potential market. I don't like it but this is how it's going to be from now on.
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Where is the evidence for that? Koolance is known for large all in one high performance systems that are stuck on top of a massive case. The enthusiast market didnt go that way. There are more WC companies and more people buying their products than ever, as far as I can tell. It will always be niche but its a growing niche.
 
Smoked Brisket said:
Where is the evidence for that? Koolance is known for large all in one high performance systems that are stuck on top of a massive case. The enthusiast market didnt go that way. There are more WC companies and more people buying their products than ever, as far as I can tell. It will always be niche but its a growing niche.
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I agree with this.

When I built my first custom loop 4 years ago it was more popular and more common to do so than ever before.

In the four years since it has absolutely exploded. Custom water loops used to be a rare really geeky extreme pursuit. Now it's just about common place. Droves of kids on Facebook and YouTube are building custom water loops.

Some companies have exited (Koolance, apparently?) or become less prevalent than before (Swiftech) but we have also had a lot of new entrants. Heck, even Corsair now sells a line of custom water cooling components.

And I think that's what is doing it as it has become more popular and volumes have grown some of these small players from when watercooling was a niche field just can't keep up.

None of this justified the extreme pricing from EK. This is probably just a greedy play to take advantage of currently having a small performance edgenover the competition, and not reflective of overall things to come. At least I hope so.
 
Ek has been jacking their prices up for a couple of years now. I bypassed getting an ek gpu block for the first time in 10 or 12 years for that reason alone. The price for anything rtx was/is ridiculous. I use their configurator to find the block type i need and buy from other vendors now. Heck i paid less than $100 for my supremacy evo. Then picked up a new top and am4 hardware for $30 a year ago, so im gtg. Theres just no way ill spend twice that for a couple of degree improvement(if that). I wont be needing another block for a longtime thanks to these silly prices. At some point they will realize they arent selling cpus or gpus. Then again...who can say for certain.
 
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