I recently learned Maya at school and am interested in using it to create models for my own games. I downloaded the PLE and much to my dismay, it doesn''t run well on my machine. (XP, P3 1-Ghz, 512 MB RAM). Since my computer is almost 3 years old anyway, this gives me a pretty good excuse to upgrade. My question is this: If you were to build a machine as a Maya workstation what components would you use? Specifically what CPU/mobo, how much RAM, and which video cards would you suggest? Unfortunately I don''t have unlimited funds, so I don''t plan on spending more than $1000 (including monitor). Any help/suggestions would be greatly appreciated.

Well I am not to good with mobos but I can tell you that 512 megs of ram is the least that you really want if you plan on seriously working with maya and at least a 64 meg video card. This of course isnt set in stone but they will do you just fine. I also think a pentium chip is the way to go.
I recently bought a dell, it is a P4 2.0 Ghz, came with 256 megs ddr sdram, and a 64 meg Geforce 4 ti video card. Also included was a 15 inch flat screen monitor. the shipping was over 100 dollars but the total cost was barely over 900 dollars.