I've been trying to figure out what combination of PC Case and Cooler would give the best balance of cooling performance, noise, and efficiency.
Happy to have the input of peoples' experience with different products or best judgement.
It depends, varies - Lafong already said it. Nothing's going to surpass doing your own experimentation...
Not everyone wants to hear that(selective hearing?), so that leaves making recommendations/suggestions that may not even be ideal for the configuration one ends up using.
Some pointers:
1)Cases with lots of open spaces have no pressure(neutral). Fan position and personal fan curves are more important. Ironically, it's the more closed up cases that are oriented towards positive or negative.
Positive pressure, the flow that everyone seems to want, is the case design least represented out of the 3; the current market consists mostly of neutrals and negatives...
Fractal Design's Torrent and Cooler Master's H500P & H500M are 3 great - and few, sadly - examples of positive pressure designed cases.
2)If you fill every space with fans,
you're doing it wrong - usually. Scratch that, you're doing it more for looks, unless the case has few fan slots.
3)Try to 'guide' air in a singular direction.
A case like the Torrent is very straightforward: Through the front and out the back.
A neutral take - Fractal's Meshify 2, for example:
-Through the front, yet curve upwards and out the top. [Top mounted AIO/CLC.]
-Through the front, and out the back. [Tower air cooler, priority to cpu thermals.]
-Through the front, curve upwards, and out the top and rear. [Tower air cooler, priority to gpu thermals. Also, front mounted AIO/CLC.]
A negative take - a sizeable chunk of NZXT cases fit here, but the H500 is very popular: Just fill the rear and top exhaust and pretty much leave it alone from there.
[Some negative cases have front panels that allow very little, or no air through, due to poor design - even when fans are set up correctly. Take the front panel on Gigabyte's C200 Glass, for example.]
Then you've got cases that offer both side and front panel options, like Corsair's 5000 and 7000 series - resist the urge to fill them both with fans. That goes back to point 2.
Flow is being T-boned and turbulence is created.
That feature is really for custom loops; a user can install a distro plate or pump+reservoir combo in the side panel, and use the front for normal air intake.
Currently running a chimney in an O11 Evo. Case is sitting on a pair of 2x4s to enhance bottom intake.
Air set to go in one direction: straight up. No fans at the side and none at the rear - there is a filter there for air that does get drawn in that way.