I am currently in the inital stages of planning a home server mostly for media and potentially pfsense, but i am also thinking maybe i could build it so i can run a windows VM for to replace my desktop machine with GPU passthrough etc to avoid running 2 systems.

If i was going to do this, would i be better off going for something like a xeon or threadripper chip or would a consumer chip like an intel i7/9 or a ryzen be sufficient? I am also considering the form factor, as i would need several hard drive slots for the media storage, I was considering like a 4U rack mount, or a larger desktop case, as these would assist with the cooling of the gpu etc. If i can reuse parts from my current gaming build that would be ideal (AIO cpu cooler 360mm for example)

I havent ordered anything yet, so i am open to anything, i would also consider an external storage solution to make the server smaller, but i am concerned about noise, i will be sitting in the same room as the rack, and while i wear headphones most of the time i dont want to be deafened by it when im not.

Hopefully that makes sense?

Edit: Sorry i should have also mentioned i currently have a triple slot GPU that i would be planning to include as well, just for the form factor question. (336mm long)