QnA Session with Corsair guys (During AND after the conference): Bringing in the BBQ Grills!!

I asked a lot of questions, mostly to Scott Thirwell. Its not really a public knowledge but Mr Thirwell was a marketing manager of Abit till the last day and Abit was one of the first companies that officially (and unofficial to an extent) pushed overclocking back in the days (Stories were told by a very wise man I respect and follow/trust a lot).

This is Scott’s second company that he’s worked so it was obvious that he wanted to be in the company which came with the same set of ideals. Tough job to do, and on top of it Corsair is venturing out to the already crowded gaming speaker and headphone market (no, the speakers were not in the display). We also about the last days of abit, even the IP45-E and PRO that was showcased and not launched. Getting all the certification and thumbs up from the respect bodies (European Union as they are way more strict than ROHS certification) taken a lot of time but company had to close down.

We also talked about Anand Shimpi and his first interaction with him when Mr. Shimpi was 15 years old. He used to meetings and accompanied by his mom for obvious reasons. These guys were one of many who pushed their community to be as strong as how it is today. Its a proven formula: You help the community grow as much as you can even if you’re a moderator- eventually it picks up. Even if the crowd and forums come and go, the impact stays and the stories are recalled multiple times even on a weekly basis. Indian Forum guys- take note!!!

This is the QnA session that I had with the Corsair guys. There were cakes and Some chicken involved. You know me, if I am there, then here comes the Grills!!!!

Hardware BBQ (During the conference): Not-so-recently ago, Corsair signed up with COOLIT as a “RnD Partner” but products like the PC case, H50/70 came before signing up with these guys and Corsair has maintained quality from Day 1- even the thermal paste on the H50 is from Shin-Etsu so why sign up with COOLIT at all when you guys are doing pretty decent for starters.

Scott Thirwell: Yeah but COOLIT guys know about cooling a lot more since they’re in the business for a long time. So it made sense to get them as an “RnD Partner”!
–
Hardware BBQ (After the conference): When Corsair announced about COOL IT being the RnD partners, there was a rumour that its another fancy way of saying “We bought them” but it died out until COOLIT silently says they won’t make stuff for End Users.

Scott Thirwell: Yeah, the thought didn’t cross our minds but we didn’t buy it out. You’re pretty nicely updated, I am sure even many guys don’t know about it despite being put across through certain official sources.
((I guess COOLIT will be providing RnD help to anyone in the cooling business”)).
–
Hardware BBQ: After signing up with COOLIT, what’s in store for this year?
Scott Thirwell: Stay tuned for our announcements.
(Yeah, we talked about it after the conference and most likely we would see a low end PC chassis from Corsair hopefully by this June)
–
Hardware BBQ: VX 450, HX620, CX400 and other products, first but they one of the pretty good ones if not best. Despite being new in the PSU business back in the days, good stuff was provided! But then came GS series, VX series being different from the older versions and CX430- it made an impression that Corsair would be going on the same line as a similar brand that did it before- so…

Scott Thirwell and Shane Dennison: Well yes there are lot of overclockers/gamers and some crazy guys used our products and they know how good our product is, but CX430 is more for a very low-end system. Its not in the same league because its not meant to be.
–
Hardware BBQ: Corsair’s rep in the forums (overclock.net/HardOCP) said that “In the regards to the GS series, we have done a survey in the market and believe me its significant, you’ve shown in the slide about the amount of gamers in India as well, but overclockers and gamers are different set of crowd. If you some manufacturers who pitch their products keeping gamers in mind also pulling in the attention of many overclockers. When GS series specs and review came out, it was a pretty decent unit but overclockers didn’t really like doing this and frankly many here agree to it. Don’t you think the products that are pitched to the gamers and to overclockers are not really clear to the level that even many reviewers don’t really point that out.

Scott Thirwell: Yeah, that’s something we need to work on.
–
Hardware BBQ: We’re talking about system configuration launch but we don’t see any Dominator GT 12 gigs kit in the Indian market despite having a small set of crowd for it somewhere. There is one kit from SMC International but its a Dominator Kit (1600mhz cl9) and the price is way higher and unreal. One is better off importing such kits from U.S., so why have a 2.5L system configuration in the first place (During the slides, the survey about the average money being spent for a gaming system in India clearly said Rs. 40,000/-) when we don’t sell such stuff easily? Even the Corsair 600T graphite series is priced so high that you can buy a Lian Li A77F for the same price range?

Scott Thirwell: The gaming and overclocking crowd is extremely small in India compared to other countries. Its growing, but its significantly small. It directly influences sales. Suppose if we bring a container full of cases and if we distribute cases even to retails that sell a lot (Prime ABGB and SMC was named, along with one more store from Bangalore), the stock will last for a very long time. Besides importing hardware and accessories to Asia itself is a very expensive task.
–
Hardware BBQ: But there are companies and retailers enjoyed this share of the market. Coolermaster is The most default choice even if we look at the crowd that is not on the forums, Prime sells NZXT chassis and its decently priced. We also seen Lian Li PC cases sold with a very attractive price and in somewhat a decent number for an already small crowd.

Scott Thirwell: Yes we’re not denying it. Corsair is still is a new name in the Indian market compared to other guys. We’re in the process of putting up our company “Not just a company which only makes memory sticks” so we’ve come not just for the conference. I’ll be going to Bangalore, speaking to a lot of people and we’ll try to overcome that challenge as much as we can.
–
Hardware BBQ: Speaking of “communication lag” between different users and reps, readers interact a lot with either reviewers or officially assigned reps. There was a rep in Techenclave forums called “CorsairIndia” which was from Kaizen infoserve but all of sudden it disappeared. Techenclave guys agreed they will start up a section for Service reps provided one shows interest. Do we see one in India on a permanent basis?

Scott Thirwell: Yes. That’s one of the things I will put it up when I speak to the concerned folks. We’ve red beard and yellow beard assigned to international forums. At the end of the day we try our best to have a 2 way communication as much as we can and forums is one of the best ways to do it since we also look into it. We’ll keep you guys posted.
–

(Left: The Sorcerer. Right: Scott Thirwell)
Yes. I look “scary”. Camera got screwed up thanks to the Airport guys’ awesome way of handing my backpack.

Message is still strong: Support the gamers and overclocker crowd as much as one can from the company guys itself, thanks to Mr Thirwell, Shane Dennison and M.A. Mannan for their time and thanks for taking care of the travel from Mumbai-to-Delhi all the way back to Mumbai that started 10 in the morning and ended at 12 in the midnight when I reached home.