I would argue that podcasting doesn’t require a lot of power, and any modern CPU will have more than enough overhead to handle whatever he’ll do. Just make sure there’s adequate storage as audio files can get pretty big depending on how they’re recorded.

A raid set up to make sure there’s no loss of recordings in a disc failure would be a good idea.

I can’t help with mics, but for headphones, audio technica m40x has the best quality to price. There are Definitely better phones, but the m40x punch way above their cost.

I know future proof was a concern, but it’s worth noting that we’re at the beginning of the next gen of ram and cpu’s, so for a LOT cheaper you can get the best of the previous generation of parts and they’ll work for years. No real room for upgrading, but there won’t be a major difference between performance for another few years . I would recommend going for the best Ddr4 and AM4 setups rather than mediocre am5 and ddr5 parts that will cost a lot more. Black Friday deals on Newegg for the last gen are pretty solid.

I generally recommend AMD over Intel just because the value is vastly higher for the price, and they don’t make you get a new motherboard every time they release a new chip.

As GPU’s are going, higher video ram is more important than chip speed for editing. Nvidia makes the best but they cost a mortgage, I run AMD myself and have never been let down, but the specs on the new Intel ARC cards are crazy considering how cheap they are. I have no experience with them though, and reviews are hard to believe because they’re so new, so half of them will be complaints about driver issues that were ironed out months ago.

Monitors are all over the place. IPS, especially high speed IPS is better for gaming and all around, VA is better for movies and video editing. Honestly high end monitors are so expensive, I’d go for a 200$ IPS and assume he’ll replace it himself if he starts getting serious about video editing.

Mechanical keyboards are great, but they’re pretty loud for podcasting, unless you specifically look for a quiet switch. Monoprice makes great mech keyboards that regularly go on sale for like 30$ and have replaceable switches if one breaks, which they never really do.

Mouse’s are unique to the individual, so don’t go too high end and find out it doesn’t fit his hand how he wants it. Again, might be best to consider it a placeholder.

Get a case with lots of room for drives. Glass panels are nice, but if you don’t have one, you’ll never be tempted to fall into the rgb pothole. Unless he wants to rgb the hell out of everything. I did the lights. No regrets.

Good power supply is key and effectively permanent, so go big and get a good brand. I recommend super flower. He’ll probably never need more than 750w, but if you go for 1000 or even 1200 he can use it indefinitely. In general more wattage is more efficient and safer. This is the only part that can take everything else with it when it fails, so don’t take risks here. I’ve had two build lose mobo, CPU, ram, and actually a backup uninterruptible power source to bad PSUs.

Edit: if it interests anyone, the bad PSUs that took down the builds were both EVGA golds, one 750 and one 850. The 750 was two years old and started a fire in the case, the 850 was brand new and killed everything in a new build, including the battery backup I had it plugged into.