Best of all though, stand-alone servers don't have to cost the earth, the cheapest models from the big three vendors often cost under £200 once you factor in cashbacks – which are often very substantial at the entry level.
Servers are amongst the cheapest new computers on the market but bear in mind that, because of their target audiences, they don't usually come with an operating system. Nevertheless, getting Linux to boot shouldn't be an issue (check out our starter guide to Linux here).
If you plan to get a computer with plenty of expansion opportunity, on a budget and with some cracking components, then you certainly can't go wrong with a server.