Actually I was wondering about GPU, and I think forgoing that could help protect you against overheating issues leading to rendering glitches (discrete graphics cards can add to system heat and also mess up case airflow). I think it's a workhorse machine. You may want to add a dedicated GPU later for other purposes of course and that would be fine.

Oh yeah: RAID would be nice for render speeds, and so nice in fact that if I were strapped for cash, I'd personally trade out half the RAM rather than sacrifice RAID. I'm sure you'll get other opinions ;)