Regarding your original question about a low-cost graphics card for 3d work, I'd recommend the GeForce 4 Ti4200 128MB (4X) card. It performs great in Maya, don't know about games (I use my Playstation2 for that), and I patched the Detonator drivers so it performs like a Quadro4 700XGL, Win2K even detects it as such. Performs much better now, and there is a noticeable performance increase. Check out www.guru3d.com/rivatuner for info on patching any GF card to it's Quadro counterpart. Despite others opinions, the two card families are very similar (ie, GF4 > Q4), save a few disabled transistors on the Q).

I bought a Gainward "Golden Sample" GF4 card, meaning they're certified by the mfr to be overclockable, if you're into that. You didn't state your pricerange, but I bought it for ~$160...