CognizantPotato

As far as Minecraft server goes, it really doesn't take much to run it. It's purely single-threaded in its own. Mine runs on a stock X5670 (Again, limited to a single thread of that CPU.) I suspect a 3200G would be plenty, or even a 3000G would suffice.

A new cpu would be good, but to get anything newer/better you would have to get a new motherboard and new RAM as well. I don't really see any way to upgrade from where you are with that amount of money.

A quick update on this. Amazon promptly sent me a new cooler. This one came sealed and everything looks as it should.

I’ll do that too. I just looked closer and noticed that the baggies for mounting equipment were torn open, so this is definitely used. 

Yep I think that’s what I’ll be doing.
 
All the unboxings I watched had plastic wrap around the box and instructions underneath styrofoam. I had neither of those so I’m thinking it’s used.
 
Thanks for the quick comments everyone. 

I don’t really play too many super intensive games honestly. The main reason I’m thinking about triple monitors is for programming / potential video editing. I do play a lot of games but i think I would just use the center monitor for most, if not all gaming. Do you think my gpu would be able to handle that?
The CPU and RAM were definitely at the top of my list because as mentioned above, while I’m still very much an avid gamer, I have a generally more productive scenario in mind. Thanks for the recommendations!

raid 5 I wouldn't use on larger than 8 or 10tb drives and groups above 8. large arrays take too long to build and with raid 5 you got no safety when rebuilding.

Build a regular PC out of commodity components that fit your requirements and gives you the possibility to replace or upgrade the hardware as soon as you need it. This way you can probably get anything you need off eBay or the nearest local computer store. Install any hypervisor you like more - Hyper-V, ESXi or KVM/Proxmox. All of them are free. With this setup, you can practically install any other operating system inside a virtual machine side-by-side be it a NAS (FreeNAS, TrueNAS, OpenMediaVault, XPenology) or server application (Plex, Zenyal, 3CX, whatsoever). Such a kind of approach gives you maximum freedom on changing/upgrading/testing things and is the best way to go. There are numerous guides over the internet on how to create a fully-fledged home lab using the latest IT technologies like this one:
https://www.vmwareblog.org/build-home-lab-using-pc-part-1-esxi-6-7-u1/
Needless to say that if you mention you have a home lab running whatever environment at home this will give you a decent amount of positive points during the IT-related job interview in the future since that means you have good practical experience with the tools.

Maybe you should read and look in to JBOD with parity and decide if you want that or RAID.

right now 6tb seagate ironwolf nas drives are 160$ each, I'd grab 4 which would give you 18tb -overhead in a raid 5 or 12tb in a raid 10.
most people wouldn't go below 4tb now for NAS drives as 8tb x300 seem to be the sweet spot.
 
software engineering isn't going to teach you this, it is an IT/comp sci class

basic idea is get a server, put a hypervisor on it, then make a vpn for the services you want.
 
Probably want a vpn for remote access, rdp over wan is a bad idea.
 
How many tb you thinking?
 
Normally either go used server like a dell r720 or get a new pc with something like ryzen, depends on your needs.
 
How much storage you thinking you need?