Thermal Grizzly's experimental direct-die CPU block uses diamond sheets

Thermal Grizzly showed an experimental direct-die CPU block at its Computex 2026 booth that places extremely thin diamond sheets beneath the cover. "So this block includes a diamond, industrial diamond, which is like exactly like what you see here," Sasha Robey, Senior Marketing Manager at Thermal Grizzly, says as she gestures to the two incredibly thin diamond sheets on display.

"To put it on the block, we have to put a special metal coating on it, because otherwise liquid metal won't stick to it." The block sits directly atop the CPU silicon; the model on display is designed for an AM5 processor with two CCDs, so ideally a Ryzen 9 9950X, and it requires delidding to reach the silicon.

Inside, the IO chip is cooled by lapped metal while the two CCDs sit beneath the razor-thin CVD diamond inserts. CVD, or Chemical Vapor Deposition, produces what would be called lab-grown diamonds, and Thermal Grizzly uses a very thin sheet of this material for its thermal benefits.

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