Teardown confirms improved heat dissipation system in new Chromecasts

iFixit's teardown of the 2015 Chromecast (above) and the new Chromecast Audio (below). Hello, thermal paste! (credit: iFixit)

Exactly how much stuff can Google cram into the tiny hockey puck that is this year's line of Chromecast dongles? According to the screwdriver-happy folks at iFixit, quite a bit, though seemingly half of the stuff in both the updated Chromecast and its new Chromecast Audio sibling is giant wads of thermal paste.

So much paste. (credit: iFixit)

According to iFixit, teardowns of both units revealed two gum-sized wads of the blue stuff—one on each side of the electromagnetic shield casing—which is good news for anybody who had issues with a piping-hot original model of the Chromecast, since the device continues to operate without a fan. The rest of the teardown confirmed information already gleaned from Marvell, the company responsible for both the old and new Chromecasts' processors, including figures such as 512MB of SDRAM in the HDMI-enabled Chromecast, 256MB of SDRAM in the Chromecast Audio, and 256MB of NAND flash memory in both.

iFixit had good things to say about the 2015 Chromecast's HDMI cable design. (credit: iFixit)

Also clearly visible were the advertised three-antenna array and a "super-durable" internal HDMI cable housing, and the latter was a big bonus for iFixit, who points out that such a replaceable and repairable cable "adds longevity... by addressing what is likely to be the most common problem—a damaged plug or loose HDMI connection."

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