It’s definitely not silent, but ultimately not too bad actually; there are mitigating factors many of which are simply due to form factor differences. The workstation itself (tower form factor) is behind things like the monitor which dampens the sound a bit (unlike a laptop being directly in front of you). I could go further to dampen sound, but for me its not really necessary.
Also, the fans are larger and can move more air at lower RPMs, so the sound frequency and amplitude is quite a bit lower than most laptop fans; so their noise is not very “whiney” like a lot of laptop fans can be. The fans are on all the time, but only rarely do they spin up above their lowest running RPMs. This means there’s a typically persistent white noise like hum in the background with some emphasis on the midrange, but attention on it fades away pretty quickly since it’s constant, not variable.
But… earlier in my career, my desk was in data center server room… so I got use to the hum of fans. Also, I use cherry MX green key-switches on my keyboard… I can’t say noise avoidance is high for me.
