Computex 2025: How to make a Waterblock with Thermal Grizzly’s Joe Robey

Today at Computex, Leo spent some extra time at the Thermal Grizzly booth talking to R&D chief, Joe Robey. In this interview we learn about the manufacturing and creation of waterblocks straight from the source.

Joe moved over to Thermal Grizzly from EKWB and is now in charge of Thermal Grizzly's new rollout of liquid cooling gear. The DeltaMate line-up of liquid cooling gear spans multiple parts, but the initial rollout focuses on high-end RTX 5090 graphics cards and the latest Intel and AMD CPU sockets. The first block we see is for the Asus ROG RTX 5090 Astral, and Joe walks us through how the final product comes together.

Thermal Grizzly has adopted a multi-finish process for these blocks, with glass blasting for a satin finish across non-contact areas of the block, and more machining to smooth out the contact areas of the block and give them a shiny mirror finish. Everything is then nickel-plated. A clear window can be found to give you a view of the coolant running through the block. Thanks to the extremely high attention to detail, these blocks look particularly great with RGB lighting. Prospective buyers may want to consider a clear coolant, as the RGB lighting from the block will shine through and give you as many colour options as you could possibly want.

The whole process takes place at Thermal Grizzly's HQ in Germany. Between all of the rounds of machining and blasting, the blocks are carefully handled by operators wearing gloves to avoid leaving any marks, and are stored in a benzene bath. When it is time to get the blocks nickel-plated and ready for sale, they are vacuum sealed to avoid any contaminants. Overall, the process takes about a month from beginning to end.

KitGuru Says: Are you considering putting together your own custom liquid cooling loop this year?

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