Are there any "must haves" missing?
yes there are.
How about the sound card ?
The only problem with dell is that they use crap generic motherboards, on a low end machine its probably not going to make much difference but their mid/high end machines I wouldn't touch for that reason alone. Its a like putting a Ferrari engine on a Lada chassis.
But Dell build quality is OK and their after sales service is very good so for anyone looking for a fairly safe option a Dell is a good choice, I even got my mother to get one.
I myself prefer to get a decent mother board first. How about taking a look at MESH computers, they don't use generic mother boards. I got a high end machine from them and was VERY impressed with it and their after sales service.
Here is a good one with a bit more bite than the dell for about the same price.
http://www.meshcomputers.com/Default...UCT&KEY=174269
* AMD Athlon™ 64 X2 3800+ - Socket AM2
* Genuine Windows® Vista Home Basic Edition
* Mini-Tower Micro ATX Case +250W PSU - Black
* ASUS M2NPV-VM ,AM2,Geforce 6150+nForce 430,PCIe,1394,GbE- Micro ATX Mainboard
* 1024MB DDR2 533MHz Memory - (2x512MB)
* 250GB Serial ATA Hard Drive with 16MB Buffer
* Super Format SONY 18x Dual Layer DVD Writer +R/-R/RW/RAM
* 128MB nVIDIA GeForce 6150 PCI-Express - (onboard - non DVI)
* 5.1 Channel Surround Sound Audio-SoundMAX (on-board)
* BullGuard Internet Security 6.0 -AntiVirus/Firewall/Backup/Spamfilter -90 day trial
* Classic Warranty - 3 Years Back-to-Base - Parts & Labour