I have a Celeron G540 2.5 ghz with 16 gig ram for my VEP machine. It cost under $200 for the motherboard, processor and ram and it works fine. I run VEP in “decouple” mode for all my Pianos and orchestral stuff (I only use about 50 tracks) that don’t need to be edited. I also use this computer as a media computer, it’s in a different room in my house and connects to my Cubase DAW via ethernet. Works great!