Rumor: Nintendo set to refresh Wii internal hardware, 65nm CPU/GPU coming

[theRepublic]

bdbdbd said:
@theRepublic: I was only talking about the mass of the heatsink. Different aluminium compound or going to copper (financially maybe not the best thing to do). Anyway, removing the fan gives a little more space and in any case, the power consuption would go near the WiiConnect24 level, where Wii already is naturally cooled and going from 90 nanometer chips to 65 nanometer roughly cuts the size in half. Biggest problem i see is whether the DVD drive needs the extra cooling (then again, since Wii doesn't play DVD movies, the drive doesn't heat itself constantly).

I already told you I know the bolded.

By the way, mass doesn't really matter in regards to the thermal performance of a heatsink.  It's all about the geometry.  The area of the base, the thickness of the base, the shape of the fins, the lenght of the fins, the cross-sectional area of the fins, the number of fins, and how the fins are spaced are the main factors.  If you look at the equations for thermal resistance of a heatsink, these are the things that are there, not mass.  It is possible to improve the design of a heatsink by removing mass if you do it in the right place.

As for the material, aluminum alloys offer great thermal conductivity for the price.  As you said, pure copper is too expensive to use, and many of coppers alloys are actually less thermally conductive than aluminum alloys.