What? In my experience I have to pay double for half the capability just for the words "rack mount"
Discussion
You can get a nearly complete dell r330 with a v6 xeon for like $120 on ebay. I just grabbed some on auctions a few months ago.
Yeah, it depends if you want modern/efficient hardware. If your energy budget is unlimited or your performance needs are flexible, then old surplus servers are the way to go. I'm running 3 myself. But if you want anything modern, prices go exponential for the same capabilities.
I personally think everyone should be running ECC RAM, RAID storage arrays, UPS backed up equipment + networking, with full redundancy for the entire IT stack... But then again my home setup is probably overkill for home use
Couldn't tell you, my rack just filled up over double digits now XD
But yeah, still though an 8 core mid 3ghz Xeon with some 2666 or higher is pretty useful. I'm at ~50 watts on those units. Which is pretty good I think. That said, I think those who are willing to put a laptop in the closet aren't using modern hardware. That and unless you're talking about a gaming laptop or an "ultrabook" or whatever the kids call them these days, I don't think the hardware can compare in actual workloads with high duty cycle on 5+ yr/old gear.
Even still the r340 series have come down dramatically in price, so your talking 5 year old equipment, possibly still cheaper than a laptop with similar processor and memory throughput.