Yes, I also remember the passive cooling community has existed for a long time, with it being a very big thing when PCs were loud monstrosities, but I feel it has peaked sometime in the mid to late '00s and has been slowly loosing momentum since active cooling solutions became much quieter and better at ramping up/down with load, with most CPUs, GPUs, PSUs coolers nowadays even turning fully off when idling or under low load, along with the shift from PCs to mobile devices, making the need for passive-only PC cooling solutions a small and expensive niche that not many venture into.
I did have dedicated graphics card though, but a passively cooled one. None of my friends found it bothersome, so maybe I'm just sensitive.
The sad part is, coil whine is unpredictable, two machines with the same make/models can behave differently.
Coil whine is usually much more noticeable when you fully load a system too.
What I would do is buy components and then fully load them as much as I could, and RMA anything with noticeable whine.
It's not "normal", Dell XPSs for example were notorious for bad coil whine where as my macbook air doesn't have any at all.
Some more tips from a recent install of a Noctua NH-P1:
* If AMD, make sure you have the
backplate or contact Noctua support for
assistance
* The backplate will slide under the
space between the case and motherboard,
with just a slight bit of anguished
bending
* Had to move the top-mounted power
supply (PSU) out of the way completely.
* 2mm is about the size of a crayon tip,
when applying the thermal paste
* Had to move a (Scythe) fan out too, but
the provided clips let me put it on top
A Thinkpad T30 idling nearby also helps mask further sounds.
I've personally been using a NoFan CR-80EH in my workstations for over 10 years. I think it's subjectively the most beautiful heatsink I've ever seen.
You do need to plan your build to accomodate such a cooler though. - Open Air case to allow free movement of air in and out of your case - 65W TDP CPU
While a lot of people feel like 65 watt TDP is limiting, there are some impressive chips you can use under that threshold that don't feel like a compromise. Eg the Ryzen 9 7900 (not-X).
And if the rest of your office is quiet, eliminating ambient background noise is a delightful improvement.