My workstations are usually tower servers, which are the same design as their 4 and 5u rack counterparts.
Until the thermal management kicks in, they sound like jet planes. When the thermal management starts and assesses the required cooling, it’ll throttle down the fans to reasonable levels.
That is, until the moment you push the machine to its limits. When then happens, you might get back to the same levels of the boot time, but it’ll require you to push everything to the max - CPU, memory, storage (all 24 bays) and so on. For a normal user, there is a lot of room and it’s virtually impossible, even with a dozen of Teams windows open.
Yes, but the line between "reasonably quiet" and 100% isn't a step function.
If these do end up in Home Labs, it's going to be a server rack in the basement and not the server rack at the other end of the room.