The heatsink is made of pure aluminum, with no copper parts. There is no heatpipe nor any non-conventional heat conducting system. The base is plain with its surface being far from having a mirror-like finishing. The thermal compound comes preapplyed, so you just have to install the cooler on your CPU without needing to apply thermal grease. Just remember that if you are replacing the Intel stock cooler with Alpine 11 Pro you need to remove the old thermal compound from your processor before installing the new cooler, because excessive quantity of  thermal grease hinders the heat flow from the CPU to the cooler.