"The cooler itself is quite a beast, weighing in at almost 1 kg with the fan attached. The design is tried-and-true: heat pipes & a lot of stacked fins. The unique feature of the Monsoon II, of course, is the 50W TEC element integrated into the base. The TEC is sandwiched between the nickel-plated copper base plate and a hot plate. Both the base plate and hot plate contain 4 heat pipes (2 to each side) that carry the heat to the fins. The heat pipes attached to the base plate have the same function as in any normal heat sink, but the ones attached to the hot plate remove heat generated at the hot side of the TEC. This way, the TEC assists the passive operation of the base plate heat pipes. Even if the TEC fails, you still have a semi-functional passive heat sink."