$1000, is actually a fair bit of money, especially for building a computer. Or at least for building a decent and stable machine that you can add to later.

If you don't want to build your own. You could buy a solid Maya system from places like Best Buy

I saw an Accer the other day at Best buy for $900

It was an AMD 4400+ with 3GB of DDR RAM and an Nvidia Graphics card (forgot the Graphic specs)

Now that is one sweet machine! Blows mine out the water anyway

Also for about $200 Dollars more, you can get the same machine, only with an Dual core Intel processor. Only problem is, that the intel system comes with an ATI graphics card...

Plus you can also get them from Gateway, and HP (stay away)

Though if you want to build your own system, you can buy a Maya ready system for about $400...

For example, My Dad Build a New machine recently, purely as a Everyday machine (for the family) He spent about $250 dollars on a Bare Bone machine. Came with an: AMD 3000+
1GB DDR Ram on a Gigabyte board. Then got himself an Nvidia 512 Graphics card online. Which rounded out the price to about $400. He was going to Install Lynx on it. But Instead installed Windows (for gaming ability) and this sucker plays all the latest game like nothing else.
Plus it runs Maya better than any of the other 2 machines

Including the 6600

Anyway, sorry for ranting

What I'm trying to say is Maya will run on pretty much any computer, and for $1000 you could build/ Buy yourself one SWEET machine.