If you’re in a small apartment or sensitive to noise, I think it’s still worth considering the Pi or a new fanless N100 system.

I bought a tiny Lenovo i5-6500 system on eBay, and while it’s fantastic from a price/performance perspective, you can still hear a subtle whine when the ambient noise drops.

Which makes total sense - the acoustic output is probably not a major consideration when they’re optimizing for footprint and cost.