It would matter a great deal. MacWorld has just posted some "real world" Mac mini tests that show a much greater response by the Universal apps on the Core Duo compared to the Core Solo. The integrated graphics in the Mac mini is Core Image compliant but it doesn't have the ability to process everything and as such must offload some of the work to the processor - 2 are much better than one in this case. RAM will also help to stop iMovie from paging things in and out of the (pretty slow) hard drive. 1GB would be a good upgrade to the Core Duo.
Core Duo all the way. Unless Intel come up with something amazing, I wouldn't really look at a single processor Mac for anything beyond "Joe Average" uses like word processing, email, internet etc. The Core Duo gives a noticeable boost in speed according to all the tests available.
for the cost difference, the core duo is the best option for anyone buying a mac mini. An extra $100 is nothing if in a years time your solo mini is crying out for a boost...
iMovie doesn't exactly render that fast, as it's not a professional application meant to render as fast and effectively as possible. With 2 processors, you'll be able to use one for rendering and have the other to use another App. At school with the 1.25 GHz eMacs some of the kids edit and it slows down to a miserable crawl when transitions are rendering. Having 2 CPU's is a huuuuuge advantage. Also, up the RAM as much as you can.
for the cost difference, the core duo is the best option for anyone buying a mac mini. An extra $100 is nothing if in a years time your solo mini is crying out for a boost...
The mini does have a socket processor though, so in a year's time, the dual core processors might be cheap enough that the one could put in the dual core and/or faster processor. Just a thought...although not everyone is up to the challenge.
The mini does have a socket processor though, so in a year's time, the dual core processors might be cheap enough that the one could put in the dual core and/or faster processor. Just a thought...although not everyone is up to the challenge.