Diamond Thermal Grease

19

You read the title right, you can make thermal grease using diamonds. Have a look at this Diamond Thermal Grease article that demonstrates how to do it. I would have thought the diamonds would have been very expensive but apparently you can buy 25 Carats of diamond dust for about $30.00 on Ebay. Of course if money is no object you can make your own diamond dust. Destroying a diamond is not easy but it can be done.

“Anybody who is a true computer hardware enthusiast these days knows that keeping your CPU from overheating while pushing it to its limits is one of the most important concerns. Thermal compounds like Arctic Silver are the front line of that defense, conducting the heat directly from the CPU to the heat sink. Without the compound, small imperfections in the surface of the heat sink can render the heat sink almost useless and lesser compounds can actually insulate your processor. Thermal compounds that are available for purchase have remained unchanged for some time. The most popular type of thermal compound has silver suspended in silicone grease. Research has been done by overclockers.com demonstrating a far superior type of thermal compound using diamond. Silver has a respectable thermal conductivity at: 429W/m K. Diamond on the other hand has a thermal conductivity of 900-2320 W/m K. So worst case scenario we double performance, and best case is roughly a 5x multiplier.”

Thanks Tom.

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19 Comments


  1. Thought about it myself too, but the diamonds have always seemed to expensive.It wouldn’t be a wonder if instead of Arctic Silver there would be Arctic Diamond. Got to make a patent…


  2. Wow, interesting idea, but in the light of environmental concerns, I wonder if this would impact its recyclability or safe disposal.
    I’m not a hippy or anything, it was the first thing that sprang to mind! Honest!
    For starters the diamond would need to be extracted from it if recycled, is it easily seperable from the rest of the PC at the end of its life? I seriously doubt if it was biodegradable.


  3. thats the wonderfull thing actualy rockapdude, it cant be patented now! its public domain. you cant patent somthing unless its unique. once it becomes public domain its you cant patent it.


  4. its protected by the author via US copyright law. so if you want to make it to sell you have to ask permission.


  5. Diamond Dust is NOT a hazardous material. It’s carbon. Same as when you burn wood. Soot is carbon.

    Also, you can’t patent the chemical makeup of the stuff–but you can patent the process you use to get the diamonds into the grease. That’s why people can put ‘patent pending’ on their AG+SI stuff.

    So, I can’t make ‘arctic silver’ grease, but I can put some silver dust into some silicone grease and call it ‘Mr. Freezy Paste’. Just so long as they don’t use my process, we are good.


  6. I want a diamond heat sink to go with it.


  7. It looks like he put way too much compound on. Most places recommend putting a small dot or line in the center.

    Those results just scream bullshit.

    However, I would still love to see this reviewed properly by a trustworthy site/person.



  10. Thanks DrNathan, I had never heard of the stuff. I wonder why it isn’t more popular?


  11. Either had I, until I had it pointed out to me.

    It makes you wonder if the claims made are skewed a bit as japroach stated.

    I would be interested to give it a shot on my next build, but I have no idea when that will be.

    Though I could probably use it now, I have an overclocked Prescott furnace in my computer.


  13. Alright, did a quick search and found some more info. The manufacturer only claims a 5F improvement over AS5 (~3C). Which still unlikely, is much more believable.

    Here is a 9 page thread on the stuff: http://www.ocforums.com/showthread.php?t=517055

    Early on it is mentioned the theoretical best improvement you could get from the paste would be 2-3C under typical conditions (and ~1C more if the heatsink is instead “directly connected” to the CPU).

    Also, initially the paste was very hard to apply, but now has been reformulated. A company representative gave away 100 tubes of the new formulation for people to review, so expect to see a lot more results within the month.


  14. is the 7 carat less effective then the 25 carat homemade suggested here because i would think so


  15. Ok, alexander, diamond dust IS hazardous, it would be like breathing in little knives, it would do severe damage to your lungs if you inhaled a good amount of it.

    Second, while diamond is a great thermal conductant, the limits are not of the thermal compound anymore, it all has to do with how good the actual cpu cooler is at dissapating heat. Going from a good paste like ceramique or AS7 to some kind of silver compound will not do much. Basically, don’t do this. Putting something you can buy at homedepot (the silicone grease) on your pretty little CPU isn’t smart. The companies who make the top thermal compounds know about the benefiets that diamond holds. However they have done the research, the pros don’t outweigh the cons in this case. oh and unfortunatly, by using the uber-fine grain diamond there are LOTS of little holes between the little diamond pieces, further decreasing the performance. the most ideal heat sink in the world would be a pure diamond carved with lots of little fins. I doubt we will ever see that. What could start happening is a pure welding of heat sink onto the cpu, very easy to do now, just super polish the materials to be welded (maybe with your 60000 mesh diamonds) place together, apply a little heat, and voialla you have eliminated all need for a thermal paste, do all this before attatching the cpu to the heat spreader and CPU manufacturers can effectivly remove all need for companies to make secondary heat sinks and cooling systems, goodbye more jobs and small companies in the world, wow, I think ive rambled quite a bit, can you tell its late here lol. just kill me if you ever see me. i wont mind. 🙂


  16. What a bunch of shit!! X-(
    Well written piece by “Robo” btw. 😉


  17. @Robo: If Diamond Dust was that bad as to cause the symptoms you say, then if you rubbed your fingers over it they would bleed profusely. Also, all the jewelers in the world would be breathing in diamonds all day, as they grind away at the bigger ones to make them pretty. I have never seen any of them wearing a mask. I however have seen them getting very close to the wheel and watching the diamond very closely. And, if it is as you say, any small amount would cause some bleeding.

    It doesn’t. This page here says so:

    http://www.nanomedicine.com/NMIIA/15.1.2.htm

    Your turn to show proof that it is dangerous.



  19. “its protected by the author via US copyright law. so if you want to make it to sell you have to ask permission.”

    No. Copyright law protects creative expressions recorded in a permanent medium. It does not protect ideas, only the expressions thereof. You are free to make this shit, you just can’t copy the article about it.

    You think the phone book makers all buy the right to copy each other? No, cuz its just infromation which can’t be copyrighted.

    And of course diamonds are hazardous. Everything chemical is going to have some hazard. Dust will get in your lungs. Given its chemical properties I’d imagine that could be quite a problem- similar to silicosis or whatever they call it with sillica.

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