Thermal Grizzly AMD Ryzen 7000 CPU Guard

The AMD Ryzen 7000 CPU Guard is a foam gasket that protects the processor from liquid metal and thermal paste. With the Ryzen 7000 series, AMD changed the shape of the heat spreaders of its CPUs and provided them with cut outs under which components like SMDs are exposed. Additionally, the heat spreader does not close with the CPU package at these cut outs, so thermal paste or liquid metal can get into this area.

 

This is where the CPU Guard comes into play. It is simply stuck onto the processor during normal CPU installation, before the Socket Actuation Mechanism (SAM) is closed. This protects all sensitive components.