While next design is correct about graphics cards..
For those like myself who cannot afford a fire gl card or a Quattro card...
I have used both ati and Geforce cards with Maya...they both work but are very temperamental as NExt design stated..
My own personal experience lends to using Geforce cards when ever possible. As they do seem more stable and cooperative with Maya and other 3d applications then ATI cards do ...this may however change since AMD is now the developer of the ATI GPU's...and AMD has a habit of making very stable chipsets.

That being said, i curently am Running an Ati card , 9800 XT pro 256 meg...I cannot get Maya to run on it without using Omega drivers...I have sadly a ATI 1950 Pro XGE 512 meg video card, that i could be using but i cannot get it to load maya at all, cracked drivers, stock drivers, old drivers, no matter what i try..
Which is a good example for Next Designs case against using consumer cards.

G-man