The big thing is what exactly are you planning to do with it and what are you using for your audio/midi interface. You want to leave possible options as open as possible because you may not know what you'll need next year. I'll use myself as an example. A few years ago I bought the EMU 1820M Audiodock system. Retail price on that is about $500 and it requires two PCI slots on the motherboard. Just that alone required me to pay attention to the motherboard in any new system I get because not all of them have two PCI slots. The other thing is USB 3. USB 3 is out now but there's not a lot of stuff that can take advantage of it yet. Some mobo's have USB 3 ports built in but mine does not. I did however check on how much it costs to do an upgrade later and there's already add on cards for $30-40 that I can plug right in to give me USB 3 if and when I decide I need it. You may not need that now but ask if any new box you're considering has an available slot for that upgrade if it doesn't have USB 3 already.

What I wound up doing is having a guy custom build my PC using a Gigabit mobo for $600. When you see the specs in my sig a name brand PC with those specs would be a more than that plus I have a very nice Cooler Master case. Also, all the name brands load up their new PC's with all kinds of crap (bloatware). The first thing a lot of people I know do with a name brand PC is remove all that stuff. Mine of course never had that in the first place. If your son knows how to build a PC, I would go that route or if not your local Craigslist or other online sales sites have tons of guys who do this. You can probably find one within 5 miles of you.

Just going though this process of deciding what components you want in a new PC will teach you a whole lot about PC's and the more you know the better. Name brands work fine, a lot of folks here use them but you run into all sorts of things like you open the case and you void the warranty, you want to upgrade something do you have to get it from Dell or HP, what if they don't have what you want, will this other brand work or will I screw something up etc, etc. Using the best name brand components in a custom built PC avoids all that. You can easily use Google to research mobo's, CPU's, ram, hard drives, controllers, cases, power supplies to determine just which ones really are good and only use those.

Bob

Biab/RB latest build, Win 11 Pro, Ryzen 5 5600 G, 512 Gig SSD, 16 Gigs Ram, Steinberg UR22 MkII, Roland Sonic Cell, Kurzweil PC3, Hammond SK1, Korg PA3XPro, Garritan JABB, Hypercanvas, Sampletank 3, more.