Is it possible and/or advisable to use the Mini Ninja as a passive heatsink only, i.e. without the fan? I'm proposing to use it on an Athlon X2 (socket 939) with a thermal power of 89W in a possible upgrade. The airflow in my case is reasonable but not huge -- fans in front and back spinning at ~ 850 rpm each (for reference, this setup keeps my current CPU, a 65W Athlon 64 with stock cooler, at 30C idle and < 40C load). The room is well-cooled and stays at a comfortable temperature.

Alternatively, is it possible to replace the Mini Ninja's 80mm fan with another fan that produces less noise?

Thanks for your input, O Estimable Experts! :-)

This thing has been out for a while now. Weeks at the least. It's already available at Newegg. SilentPCReview just posted an article on the 6th about it. But it's good to see it get some attention here too.

Bottom line is that it gives up from several to 10 degrees C to the full sized Ninja and the stock fan is louder. It could still do a miserly CPU passively in a well ventilated case.

This thing could be killer for a 2U server with fast (read: hot) CPUs.

Looks like the fan on the pictured model isn't mounted ideally. Note the direction of the aluminum fins on the heatsink base vs. the airflow.

it looks like my Ninja with half of the height lopped off. Probably make an excellent cooler considering how crazy good the full size version is at cooling (I don't even have a fan on my Ninja).

Its called the Minja.