Decision Help -- Mac Pro vs. maxed-out iMac

I need some wise opinions please ... :)

I recently upgraded from a 2008 Mac Pro (heavily upgraded) to a new 2012 maxed-out 27" iMac which really is pretty nice. However ... the fire-sale last Monday on 12-core 2012 Mac Pros grabbed my attention (and purchase).

I need to make a decision on which one to keep, especially since the Mac Pro could be returned ( :eek: ), or sold with perhaps a bit of profit. I have many upgrade parts which will update the 2012 Mac Pro further. I am not a Pro, but an advanced amateur photographer and electrical engineer who likes to tinker and upgrade. I probably won't run any software that actually uses all 12 cores. I hope to keep/use it for at least 3 years of everyday general usage. This will also run Windows for some PC type gaming.

What are your opinions and why? :)


2012 iMac Configuration
3.4 GHz Core i7
32 GB RAM
768GB SSD plus Thunderbolt Pegasus J4 with dual 2TB RAID-0 hard disks
NVIDIA GeForce GTX 680MX 2GB VRAM
27" 2560 x 1440 integrated display

2012 Mac Pro Configuration
2.4 GHz dual-6 core XEON 12-cores total
32 GB RAM
1TB SSD RAID-0 on Sonnet PCIe plus additional hard disks/ssd as desired
ATI HD 5870 1GB VRAM
30" Apple Cinema Display 2560 x 1600 (or sell and get 27" ACD - new design coming?)


Thanks for any suggestions, comments, or opinions... :)

-howard