[baddox]

Other than the common correlation with electricity usage and possible environmental benefits, I have trouble sharing the concern for the loudness of a powerful PC. Unless room space is very limited, I always just kept my PCs far enough away from my desk that the sound of fans became little more than regular ambient noise, not very noticeable against the fans or air conditioning I already had.

Granted, I never had any insanely beastly machines, generally just sub-$1500 gaming rigs. The only sounds that I ever even noticed were shorter irregular ones, like spinning disks. Perhaps the problem is simply more noticeable to other people, especially those with more powerful and thus louder machines, or people with smaller spaces who have their machines much closer, like on their desk or around their feet.

I care about ambient noise much more for other applications, like laptops or home theater PCs. For both of those, I have a strong preference for fanless models if at all possible.

The trash can Mac Pro seemed to be designed to sit on a desk, so quietness makes sense, although I don’t understand what’s so important about having very powerful machines on your desk. For machines like iMacs, the problem of placement is obviously unavoidable, but I struggle to understand why that form factor is desirable for a very powerful machine.