Left is idle, right is under full gaming load (Helldivers 2). My previous rig (Intel) easily went up to 85-90°C in the same circumstances. Ambient temps are slightly elevated as well since we've been having ~30°C temps daily here for a while now.
To me this is almost ridiculous. I had never dreamed I could get my temps under load under 70. CPU is at stock speed since there is literally no reason to push it any further at this point. Can always choose to up the clocks later if I still want to.
Cooler is a Noctua NH-D15 G2. I don't see myself returning to watercooling any time soon. And Noctua has a new customer for life.
I ditched air cooling because of the sound of the fans ramping up and down whenever I did anything briefly intensive, like installing a package.
Have you had a look at your BIOS into the "Fan step up/down time" options?
Thats an issue with how your fan curves are set up more than the cooler type. Not enough hysteresis and ramp smoothing.
Its also just less obnoxious with a good air cooler that's still fairly quiet at 100% fans.
Needs some hysteresis. Something most custom fan speed curves lack is a hysteresis option. Basically for short loads don't ramp the fans up to full blast just because the CPU got hot for 0.5 seconds. Liquid coolers aren't immune to this either. If the pump speed is low then it has to start ramping up. And pump noise equally drives me insane.
Like OP said Noctua fans are basically magic. I have mine set with a very not aggressive curve and hysteresis so I rarely notice them ramp up and down.
Yeah, you can leave them set pretty high and they basically make no noise. No point having them drop super low, or go super high, as they push a lot of air for the noise they make. With a good hysteresis function, as you say, hardly ever hear them ramping.
That was my initial reason to go with an AIO. But this Noctua is damn silent. Its "ramping up" is a gentle whirr. An AIO's pump is generally about as loud.