02-08-2013, 10:50 AM
I know you're asking about real-world experience, but barefeats.com has some insight that might be helpful:
"The newest, fastest CTO iMac, the 'late 2012' 3.4GHz Quad-Core i7 (Ivy Bridge) with the NVIDA GeForce TX 680MX, performs strongly in all tests. It was second only to the 6-core Mac Pro in the CPU tests (Cinebench and GeekBench) and beat all the other Macs in three out of four GPU tests, coming in second in the fourth GPU test.
An 8-core or 12-core Mac Pro with an 'alternative' GPU like the GeForce GTX 580 or Radeon HD 7970 might beat the newest, fastest iMac but you will spend a lot more money to get there. A lot more. Then again, if you own a fast Mac Pro already, maybe all you need is a faster GPU, more memory, and a screaming SSD boot drive."
http://www.barefeats.com/imac12b1.html
"The newest, fastest CTO iMac, the 'late 2012' 3.4GHz Quad-Core i7 (Ivy Bridge) with the NVIDA GeForce TX 680MX, performs strongly in all tests. It was second only to the 6-core Mac Pro in the CPU tests (Cinebench and GeekBench) and beat all the other Macs in three out of four GPU tests, coming in second in the fourth GPU test.
An 8-core or 12-core Mac Pro with an 'alternative' GPU like the GeForce GTX 580 or Radeon HD 7970 might beat the newest, fastest iMac but you will spend a lot more money to get there. A lot more. Then again, if you own a fast Mac Pro already, maybe all you need is a faster GPU, more memory, and a screaming SSD boot drive."
http://www.barefeats.com/imac12b1.html