Hello, I'm quite new to the self-hosted experience, and so far I've been running my services from a RPi3b, and I'm looking to upgrade.
One of requirements is that the system is silent and cheap to run. Also, it should be mostly self contained. My Pi is in a passive cooled aluminum case.
So I've been looking at options and stumble upon the Bmax N1 plus, it's a cheap, passive cooled, low power Celeron machine with a bunch of internal storage options. I've seen a couple of critics in yt saying that is too slow for console emulation, but how about running services?
Other option I've checked out was the Zima board, but the whole naked computer aspect is not particularly to my liking and I don't have the tools to build a nice case for it.
I'm mostly interested in running home assistant and jellyfin.
I got a Lenovo ThinkCentre M910q Tiny Intel i7-7700T on eBay for just under $200 USD. Though you can find slightly older less powerful ones for a bit cheaper. It does have a fan, but stays generally pretty quiet unless it's under a super load. It's easy enough to add an M.2 drive and get an 2.5" drive enclosure (I got on amazon).
I agree that x86_64 architecture is much more versatile than arm.
I moved my services a couple of months ago from a RPi3b to a second hand HP ProDesk 600 sff. You also have a Dell variant (Dell Optiplex SFF). These can be found for around €100/$100, don’t use to much electricity and are way more powerful than the RPi. Also, they use the x86-64 instruction set instead of arm which has better software availability. Let me know if you want to know the specific specs/version I have!
I do not know where are you from but in Poland Dell Wyse 5070 with J5005 is really cheap and popular for selfhosting. It is really powerful (for passively cooled device) and a couple of my friends are using it for selfhosting Home Assistant