So a proper "closer-to-real-world-conditions" test environment is too much effort for all of these tech enthusiasts?
"Vapor chambers also rarely show up on GPUs, until recently. "
Anything with a heat pipe going through it is a vapor chamber cooler design. My still-used 9800GTX+ has one. That card will be 15 years old in three months. These are not new things in GPUs, by any means. That's how you get so many prior gens of top-end cards in a two-slot design despite hitting nearly 300W+ in power draw.
Heat pipes from the previous decade don't have a wicking matrix, they're hollow, and even often smooth-walled. Vapor chambers have sponge-like structures inside of them to re-condense water closer to the heat source and assist its movement back to the hotspot via capillary action.
"Heat pipes from the previous decade don't have a wicking matrix"
Yes, they do. If they're not flat pipes, they've likely got a wicking material inside them. This isn't really new tech, it's been around for cooling LASER and LED arrays for quite some time.
Thank you for correcting me. I thought I remembered photos of heat pipes from popular CPU coolers c. 2010 with smooth inner faces, but on reviewing some old photos from across the internet I found I was mistaken.
The flat pipes tend to not need wicks as they're thin enough that they get the added benefit of capillary action. Any tube design, excepting ones using fairly-thin tubing (2mm OD 1.5mm ID) will likely use a wick for its own capillary action.
Vapor chambers also rarely show up on GPUs, until recently.