roger that, you defenately would want more ram and better video card. i would recoment watiting just a tad longer for the 8X AGP cards that should be in the market now. 1 to 2 gig of memory should be great for mid to high detail and lenght projects. maya 4.5 sounds great, but since you have 4.0 unlimited and you say you are very new at this. you should use the money for system upgrade then down the line upgrade your software. on vid i would suggest a 128 meg video card.... thats it mate

im running a 2.4 ghz p4 with 1 gig ddr ram and a gf4-ti4600
maya 4.0.2