Yeah noise is why I didn’t go with surplus servers, and the power requirements. Proper servers are actually pretty cheap, less than these tiny towers even. But the power and noise is just too much. Plus less horsepower is actually more interesting to me so my workloads have a hope of hitting scaling limitations.
The tiny tower I have on the way is one of these: https://www.lenovo.com/us/en/desktops/thinkcentre/m-series-t...
They’re available in a bunch of configurations and on multiple sites so you can look around for a good deal that fits your needs. I found one with an SSD for additional power savings.