Thanks but I kind of know what my machine should be able to run simultaneously. I run programs far more complex and resource intensive then Maya with no issues.

Programs, especially resource intensive ones, should manage resource issues gracefully and not just crash corrupting critical files. Even Maya 2009 on older hardware, and a 32-bit OS handled resources better then I am seeing Maya 2012 on 64-bit windows 7 machine with 24GB of memory. lol