Will this be overkill or otherwise not recommended for someone who is new and just starting to learn?
My goal is to have something I can grow into, but initially I'd like to host a few VMs, game servers, and a have place to store content. I'd also like to host a PLEX server in the future as well but might buy a separate piece of hardware for it specifically down the road. Thanks in advance for taking the time to help a newbie!
Bang on, the mini pc crowd is funny.
Power consumption isn't black and white, because you have completely different feature sets.
I agree I wouldn't grab any dell under an X30 at this point and def go with a v4, that being said if you find a good deal on a v3, a v4 upgrade is like $20 for something around a 2680