From iMac to Mac Pro for video work.. suggestions please!

Hello all! Soon I'll be upgrading from my 2.66 GHz quad core iMac with 4gb of RAM to a new Mac Pro. The idea is to increase my productivity with applications such as After Effects & Final Cut Pro by hopefully decreasing time spent rendering/buffering/burning. The iMac has been working really well all this time, but a bit faster would be better!
I have about $4,000 to work with for a new machine. I welcome your thoughts on the best bang for my buck, be that a new/refurbished from Apple or used from eBay. Thanks everyone!

The Hatter has provided his insights as well as some excellent links.
The performance of the 2009 and later models is nearly twice that of the previous models with the same specs due to architectural changes including Hyper Threading.
All the Xeon Macs are keeping their value very well, and that means there are very few real deals on eBay.

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    production never = bleeding edge, go for a mature well tested proven design - expect to see firmware change, compatibility issues, and 3-4 months for a unified build and drivers rolled out, no?
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    Apple was emailing people that did, not sure if they still do.
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    Hi.
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    FCP X 10.1, Motion 5.1 Updates w/Dual GPU Support (new Mac Pros) (from Thursday)
    Apple released Final Cut Pro X 10.1 Thursday with support for Dual GPUs in the new Mac Pro and more.
    Long list in the Final Cut Pro X 10.1 Release Notes that also links to info on How to back up important FCP X 10.0.x files before updating. (Today's Apple docs listing also has more related to Final Cut Pro X 10.1.)
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    Intel Xeon processors are designed to run 24/7 and stay cool and under load.
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    Monitors vary too much in cost range, and you can do better outside Apple, but are one time cost.
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    An iMac is not going to run as cool and quiet and because of its shape has to be allowed to run hotter it seems. You can stress and pound on those Xeon systems all day max it out and it is quiet beast.
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    I appreciate that this question probably gets asked reasonably regularly but I have a few specific points I'd like some help on.
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    Better screen res (although I have some questions on that).
    More graphics RAM (1GB against 512mb)
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    How should the graphics compare (the iMac having a 6775 chip with 512 memory and the MBP having a 4000 chip with 1GB memory)?
    How should the screens compare. The MBP obviously has a massive PPI boost but.....is the colour balancing meant to be good enough. So far I've been more than happy to use the iMac for colour grading).
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    Well,
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