Ive waited forever to upgrade to the new Mac Pro. But, I see now one can buy a new 5,1 12 core for $2599 and obviously $2999 when new ones come out. For normal everyday stuff, safari, mail, few light programs, best to just wait for the new one? Does many programs even use the multicore except hard core ones? Any advice would be appreciated. Thanks.
As your only requirement that you have given us that needs a Mac Pro is the ability to drive your 4 monitors then I would suggest you wait for the nMP. Which as you say is your choice as it looks cool. You are right the 3 monitor limit is if they are 4K displays. 6 Thunderbolt displays can be driven so 4 monitors with the necessary adapters is possible. Going to use up 4 of those 6 TB ports however doesn't sound like you are going to use those anyway.
12 Core Power is wasted. Quad Core on the nMP will be fine and will use less electricity.
The main thing that you need the Mac Pro for is GPU connectivity.
Personally I would suggest that for what you need then could purchase a new 5,1 base model with the 3.2GHz Quad, 5770 GPU card. Add a second gpu card and then drive 2 monitors off each card, or purchase a single more powerful card to drive all 4 monitors off 1 card.
The money saved on the single processor etc compared to the dual processor will then pay for any additional upgrades, SSDs USB3 cads etc that you want to add in alongside the GPU.
Depending upon how comfortable you feel doing upgrades then any reason couldn't get a second hand 5,1 and save even more.
I bought my 5,1 second hand for £1000 as a base 2.8GHz Quad (2010) and upgraded myself to the specs below. ( I use for FCPX ) Still has Applecare till April on it if bothered about the warranty aspect. However if coming from a 2006 then the warranty long expired so not necessarily such a big deal for you.
As the current processor bump 2012 is still a 5,1 then OS support should last the same time as the 2012 12 core.
However as you are being driven by your wants then really is going to be down to what you want, rather then what you need. As others have pointed out, for your needs then a mac mini would be fine ( as you said you don't need the 4 monitor it just looks cool ) and is just your choice for the 4 monitors that means you need the gpu output capability of the MP. The nMP looks cooler then the cheesegrater so if being driven by wants then the nMP would seem to be answer, however is way overkill other then the monitor output capability.
