So I've had my new system for a couple weeks now, and really happy with everything so far. Maya x64 runs great on Windows 7 x64, starts in ~8 sec with a SSD after it's been cached (6GB RAM). No issues with the viewport and very smooth (only really tried it with ~100,000 polys so far though).

Mental ray renders fast (which is very subject, I know) though not blazingly instananeous (may try OCing someday when I really need more power). All 8 virtual cores shoot up to 100%, so no problems with the i7s.

This is just to give people info on how a certain config runs maya, not to brag, cause I'm sure lots of people have way better systems than me :p