If they would have tested an Asetek or can't think of the name right now. Maybe then it could have been a different story.
Nope. Top of the line closed loop coolers are pretty close in terms of performance. You just can't get good water cooling at that price point. You need to spend at least $200 to get quality parts. Spend half as much, get half as much.
To get the price down closed loop systems use crappy radiators and underpowered, loud pumps. The fans have to work harder to cool the liquid, and as a result are much louder than a decent air cooler. You can certainly make them quiet by running them at their low settings, but then their cooling performance is awful and they aren't noticeably quieter than a good air cooler anyway.
If you want to buy a closed loop system for the cool factor, hey, knock yourself out. Just don't tell people that your closed loop system outperforms good air coolers, because it doesn't. It costs more and makes more noise to do the same job.
To me, if you want the best bang for your buck and just want to cool your system effectively and quietly, the only way to go is with a top of the line air cooler. If you want to use water, go big or go home.
Again I wouldn't fully trust those benchmarks because/review because on load playing BF3 mainly Ultra/High settings my water cooling fan never becomes a problem I hear my graphics card fan ramp up more often than not.
You'll have to forgive me if I trust a respected hardware review site that meticulously benchmarked the equipment in question over the heresay of some random guy on the internet who's contradicting a widely held belief that's been backed up by every benchmark I've ever seen.