If the prices of one of these new are a bit out of your budget, but you still want a relatively powerful workstation, take a look at used machines from a few of generations ago.
Last year I picked up a Dell T3600 with a Xeon E5-2670 (V1 - 8C/16T) and 32GB ECC RAM for €400 delivered. It's not completely silent (maybe HP are better in that regard based on comments here?), but it doesn't make much noise - at least compared to what you'd expect from the power it gives.
I now work from home, and having previously primarily used laptops, this thing feels like a beast.
Yes if you want something that needs the fastest CPU you probably don't want this machine, but in that case you are probably willing to spend a lot more. The laptop I upgraded from had a score of 250, so for me it's a big difference.
I checked prices for sourcing my own hardware on the same platform, but it would have been a lot more expensive. The problem here in Europe is there is less second hand enterprise hardware available (if I remember correctly, a compatible motherboard alone would have been ~€200, and the RAM was about the same) and importing something from outside Europe means you need to pay customs fees, which in my country adds ~30% to the price.
Exactly. In Europe, the UK seems to be the biggest market for used enterprise hardware, so take a look at ebay.co.uk. Usually they will ship to the continent for not too much (~£20), and if you have a VAT number you can get that taken off (20%).
Have you considered connecting to a VM with your laptop? Now that you have the huge thing in your home the latency would be minimal and you can stash it in you garage.
I have it under my desk, it's quiet compared to desktops from a couple of generations ago, but loud compared to modern laptops (i.e. that are usually silent). I like the ability to run dual 4K displays which my laptop can't :)
Last year I picked up a Dell T3600 with a Xeon E5-2670 (V1 - 8C/16T) and 32GB ECC RAM for €400 delivered. It's not completely silent (maybe HP are better in that regard based on comments here?), but it doesn't make much noise - at least compared to what you'd expect from the power it gives.
I now work from home, and having previously primarily used laptops, this thing feels like a beast.