The power of the Ninja (god, that sounds so stupid!) is with passive cooling. The widely-spaced fins are awesome exactly for that purpose. Yes, the Ninja was and will be worse than other top-end coolers when fans are involved, but it's better when you don't have a fan on the cooler.

Exactly! I think the fact that the Scythe coolers work great WITHOUT the fan cannot be stressed enough. Unfortunately the reviewer only mentioned on a side note.

I really think that he should have spent more time testing it without the fan and comparing it to how its competitors fare without their fans. Overclocking is one aspect of aftermarket fans, but for average consumers it is definitely not more important than having a silent system.

The test results in fanless mode were described in detail within the results discussion on each platform. Please check out the appropriate sections of the article.

Yes, Anna, we know, but what was the point in testing fanless operation in an open testbed, which is exactly what's never going to happen? Passive means "no fan on the heatsink, cooled by case airflow", not "no airflow whatsoever". :)

I'd like to second that. I was looking for info about the Ninja in passive mode, but I didn't find anything useful about that aspect in this review. Running a heatsink in passive mode in open bed conveys no useful information.

Unfortunately, it isn't just the wimpy fan that makes it a bad buy. The lack of true bolt-through mechanism is also responsible for the lackluster performance, by not applying enough pressure to the CPU. For a tall heavy heatsink like SNC, the cantilever effect can cause thermal compound to slip, which can be damaging to CPU. The greatest irony is, only the older Ninja Rev. B supports secure bolt through mounting, by using Thermalright Bolt-thru Board Mounting kit.[1]

[1] http://www.silentpcreview.com/article805-page6.html