There are conflicting results on this topic and other experiments have been done in the past.
I'm a pellet fan. IPAs are the majority of what I brew and aside from personally noticing greater aroma from pellets, they are also easier to dryhop with. The problem with using pellets for IPAs is that the quality of the hop is more difficult to inspect when pulverized in pellet form vs. whole leaf. And there is a greater chance that you will get older pellet hops than older leaf hops.
Whole hops can have as much as 70% more myrcene than pellets of the same variety, but that difference is flipped when the wort is hopped as only 5% of myrcene is extracted from whole hops compared to 17% from pellets.
Total Oil Content and Myrcene % is key when selecting the most aromatic dryhops for American IPAs. Those flavors/aromas reminiscent of floral citrus, juicy fruit, and pine are always at their greatest when taking into account higher Total Oil Content and Myrcene values. Some of these hops include Amarillo, Citra, Simcoe, Centennial, and Nugget. Whereas flavors akin to grass, hay, spice, and earth tend to have low oil and low Myrcene. Some of these hops include Saaz, Fuggles, East Kent Goldings, and the Hallertauer varieties. High Myrcene always comes with high total oil content. But high total oil content does not always mean high levels of Myrcene. Examples of these type of hops would be Chinook, Summit, Apollo, and Columbus.
