Jigsaw,
From various reading, it seems that copper transfer and distribute heat faster than other metal. I actually have a Dell 5150 laptop that was using the same steel heatsink design and Dell switched to copper at subsequent revision. I did a replacement and was surprise to see that it is true, the fan was on less and it does took less time to cool down when monitor with Dell inspiron fan control. If you pay attention to other manufacture, it seems that everyone else has switched to copper cpu heatsink for laptop except some very light weight Sony unit that use Aluminum. Full copper cpu heatsink tends to be bit more expensive, they are more common in the desktop now and some use mixture of copper contact on cpu and other steel for the heatsink structure. Aluminum is often used due to its light weight but Dell one seems to be made of steel. Overall, the supplier probably save few bucks using this heatsink since the Dell buys the whole unit from when they compete for quotes. Asus seems have won contracts from Dell over Samsung and its spin off laptop divsion does use all copper for the cpu heatsink. However, there are Compal and Quanta guys make laptops for Dell. Overall, it's something that it's not something to make a big deal out of it but I do wish that they wouldn't save few bucks for this part. But then, few dollars does become big number when they sell in millions.
From various reading, it seems that copper transfer and distribute heat faster than other metal. I actually have a Dell 5150 laptop that was using the same steel heatsink design and Dell switched to copper at subsequent revision. I did a replacement and was surprise to see that it is true, the fan was on less and it does took less time to cool down when monitor with Dell inspiron fan control. If you pay attention to other manufacture, it seems that everyone else has switched to copper cpu heatsink for laptop except some very light weight Sony unit that use Aluminum. Full copper cpu heatsink tends to be bit more expensive, they are more common in the desktop now and some use mixture of copper contact on cpu and other steel for the heatsink structure. Aluminum is often used due to its light weight but Dell one seems to be made of steel. Overall, the supplier probably save few bucks using this heatsink since the Dell buys the whole unit from when they compete for quotes. Asus seems have won contracts from Dell over Samsung and its spin off laptop divsion does use all copper for the cpu heatsink. However, there are Compal and Quanta guys make laptops for Dell. Overall, it's something that it's not something to make a big deal out of it but I do wish that they wouldn't save few bucks for this part. But then, few dollars does become big number when they sell in millions.
