There is a big difference between the 500 and 1000 or 1100. Look for some benchmarks and you'll see. The 1100 doesn't come in too far behind the 3000 in a lot of tests. IF it was a choice of the 500 or 1100 i'd push to get the 1100. I can tell you though i'm still running a Geforce 4 4600 and i don't have any problems with Maya, even heavy scenes. Just to need to learn how to manage them.