Both heat pipes and vapor chambers are fast heat transfer elements designed using the same two-phase flow (liquid and gas) principle, so they are both used to transfer heat quickly. The difference between the two is that heat pipes transfer heat point to point in one direction, while hot plates transfer heat point to plane. So for larger heat sources with higher wattage, one can choose to use a larger number of heat pipes to transfer the heat, whereas for smaller heat sources with higher wattage where a larger number of heat pipes cannot be used, one can choose to use a hot plate to transfer the heat point to plane from a concentrated heat source. This is because the hot plate transfers heat point to plane from the heat source to the heat sink fin at the condensing end simultaneously, unlike the heat pipe which transfers heat point to point to each heat sink fin at the condensing end in sequence. Hot plates can have a lower thermal impedance, which means that for the same wattage, using a hot plate as a heat transfer element will be more efficient and cooler than using a heat pipe, but this is not absolute, but depends on the design of the system.