With all other things being equal, would you benefit more from an i7 with 12 gigs of RAM or an i5 with 24 gigs of RAM for a DAW?

Adding more RAM doesn't speed anything up.

Unless you are running some massive sample libraries, 12 GB is probably enough. Is 12 the maximum it can take, as upgrading RAM is easier than CPU, Especially if it's a laptop.
 
I believe i7's run cooler (Anther laptop concern), There are stacks or i5 that run faster than the i7 too, with cores speed and generation to factor in
 
https://www.cpubenchmark.net/common_cpus.html

All things in a DAW are almost never equal! :)

But if it was me I'd go with a faster i7 and the 12gb ram. Is the ram set up as dual channel or quad channel?

Like kamikaze says, unless your running very large sample libraries, cpu power would help in running more plugins during a mix down.

I've never had a Sonar project that uses more than 2GB of RAM, but I do stay away from huge sample libraries. I do use BFD, Addictive Drums, Garritan Personal Orchestra etc. etc. Mind you, I'm doing tunes with 80 plus tracks, full live drums, percussion, many keys etc. etc.
 
Also keep in mind that in some form factors i7s are barely any faster than i5s because you run into the thermal dissipation limit with either when pushing hard. Finally, an 8th generation i5 is faster than a 7th generation i7 in the same TDP.
 
TL/DR: 12GB is MORE than enough, spend your money somewhere else...
 

The i7. Unless its clock speed is way, way lower than the i5.

I7 might run the fan harder than the i5. I7 will process fx faster. Ram doesn't sound like a problem in either case.

I would go with the fastest clock speed CPU for single threaded performance.  8-12GB RAM should be fine unless you are working with large sample libraries loaded in memory.

I just pulled up an enormous, mostly sample-based project that includes multiple monster libraries, just to see what the memory footprint was.
 
    Trilian
    Keyscape
    Superior Drummer 3
    2 instances of Omnisphere
    10 instances of Kontakt
    Insignificant components: VB3 and 4 instances of Zebra 2
 
Total RAM usage: 6 GB.

Thanks for all the replies! Very helpful information. Now, from what I understand, not all i7's are created equal (core-wise). So, now I guess I need to find out which models to avoid.