Sapphire 9000 pro best passive heatsink solution

[brianLp518]

I just purchased a Sapphire 9000 pro for my "silent computer" but the fan is even louder than my Zalman 7000A Cu.

I've seen post for passive heatsinks for the GPU such from Zalman, but I wanted your guys' opinion which way would be the best for occasional gaming (not OCing).

The passive heatsinks i have seen are:

1) Zalman's ZM-NB47J and ZM-NB32J northbridge chipsets (about $8 on pricewatch.com)

2) Zalman's ZM17-CU heatsink (the one with fins similar to the CNPS6000 Cu) w/o a fan (about $12-15 at a no name place)

I really don't want to use the Zalman ZM80C ($26 on pricewatch) because it just seems like overkill and takes up a lot of space (not to mention difficult installation).


Is it possible to use the northbridge heatsinks or the zm17 cu without a fan directed over it (i have the antec 3700BQE w/ the 120mm fan right about the card). Thanks. Any feedback would be great. Thanks.