In the present study, an experimental setup with stringent measurement methods for performing the natural convection from a horizontal heated chip mounted with a silicon heat spreader coated with diamond film has been successfully established. The parametric studies on the local and average effective heat transfer characteristics for natural convection from a horizontal smooth silicon wafer, rough silicon wafer or silicon wafer coated with diamond film spreader have been explored. The influencing parameters and conditions include Grashof number and spreader material with different surface treatment conditions. From the results, an axisymmetric bowl-shaped Nu profile is achieved, and the highest heat transfer performance occurs at the location near the rim of the heated surfaces for various heat spreaders. The local Nusselt number for a specified convective heat flux decreases along the distance from the disk rim toward the center. The local or average Nusselt number increases with increasing Grashof number for various heat spreaders. As compared with the average Nusselt number for smooth water surface (Ra=5.69nm), the heat transfer enhancements for rough silicon surface (Ra=516.61nm) and rough diamond surface (Ra=319.51nm) are 10.42% and 7.69%, respectively. Furthermore, new correlations for local and average Nusselt numbers for various heat spreaders are presented, respectively. As compared with the smooth silicon surface, the external thermal resistance for rough silicon surface and rough diamond surface are reduced to 91.18% and 90.73%, respectively; and the maximum thermal resistances for rough silicon wafer and silicon wafer coated with diamond film are reduced to 90.43% and 92.61%, respectively.