There’s no question that building a PC can become an expensive hobby.
In the past, I used sites like PC Parts Picker to build my own PCs. (opens in new tab) You can actually save some money over buying the best off-the-shelf gaming PC. Especially when the prices of some components like the best graphics cards have increased incredibly in recent years.
And I’ve been drumming for cheaper PC components in almost every review. So you would think Amazon is entering the PC component market with the Amazon Basics CPU Air Cooler. (opens in new tab) Be a reason to celebrate. All in all, it’s definitely cheap, just under $30, which is great for budget-conscious builds.
Still, I don’t think there is a company that wants to get into the PC components market more than Amazon.
yes it’s cheaper but still a imitation
As Tom’s Hardware (opens in new tab) This Amazon Basic CPU cooling fan looks almost the same as this Cooler Master Hyper H410R RGB CPU Air Cooler. (opens in new tab) It sells for about three times the price of an AmazonBasics CPU cooler.
The two specs are comically similar. It’s as if Amazon copied Cooler Master’s design for his CPU cooler, adopted a 20% slower RGB fan, and ruthlessly cut down the company that did all the work to design his CPU cooler in the first place. .
Don’t get me wrong, I’m not here to shed tears for the profits of the component companies who make a lot of money selling computer parts. But whatever can be said about Cooler Master, Amazon wants to make quick money and is not interested in the market beyond the money they can get out of it, at least it has a vested interest in the target market. I have.
Cooler Master, like it or not, did the work of designing that fan, and Amazon completely ripped off just that fan. Cooler Master probably invested money to make sure it did the job it was intended to do. Amazon does no such thing. We can almost guarantee it.
What Amazon did was verify from their own internal sales data that the product was selling well on their site, and then used that internal data to create a knockoff of it, now along with the copied product. for sale. at a big price cut. This isn’t the first time Amazon has done this (opens in new tab) and it’s not the last either.
If this trend takes hold and Amazon gets into PC components as aggressively as it does with household goods, PC builders will do worse in the long run.
Why counterfeits are bad in the long run
(Image credit: Future)
The problem with counterfeits is that the people making them don’t really know what they’re doing. They didn’t develop their own ideas or products, they just copied what someone else had put a lot of time and investment into and successfully developed.
But the more people buy counterfeits, the worse the original manufacturer’s bottom line. Again, I’m not here to mourn the loss of his Cooler Master earnings. Money Amazon will never invest in developing high quality CPU coolers.
When everyone buys an Amazon knockoff cooler, Cooler Master has less incentive to build something better. So what’s the point?
As time goes on, the quality of all CPU coolers degrades as there is less incentive to invest in proper engineering. It also ends up being a worse product because Amazon sells counterfeit goods that have to shave the bottom of the revenue barrel.
Indeed, that build right now It will cost less to build, but as a result, future builds will have a hard ceiling on quality.
Component makers need to get serious about low-budget products
Ultimately, the reason Amazon is doing what it is doing now is because there is a market for cheap PC components. The best CPU coolers can be pretty expensive without even stepping on the AIO side, so it makes sense that Amazon would try to profit from this gap in the market.
The ultimate solution is for component manufacturers to fill these gaps with high-quality, budget-friendly products. Component prices are rising year by year, putting low-budget PC builders at a huge disadvantage. It’s inevitable that someone will step in to fill that gap, and it’s a real shame it’s Amazon, but it’s perfectly predictable.
Unless the component manufacturer wants to get away with Amazon entirely by undercutting it with counterfeits, it should offer its customers a replacement that Amazon cannot undercut. Let’s hope they heed the warning bells for the industry.
