Intel Core Duo 1.6 or Intel Core Solo 1.4 for playing Divx/Xvid?

[cool_thing76]

Hi,
I wanna buy a Mac mini..and I have to choose between 2 processors Intel Core solo 1.4GHz which costs about 300$ less than the Intel CoreDuo 1.6GHz.

My question is: should I buy the cheaper processor..and would it make a big difference in playing Divx/Xvid movies??

Thanx...

[Blue_MiSfit]

Would it make a difference for DivX / XviD, no.

Standard definition H.264, no.

High Definition anything, yes.

Just be aware that the Mac Mini does not have sufficient horsepower for HD really... Especially under OS X. Maybe if you ran Boot Camp on it, installed windows, and used Core AVC it would handle 1080, but I kinda doubt it. You would surely need the Duo for this situation.

It's a strong little system though. I would definately reccommend it!

~MiSfit

[unmei]

You are *far* above the requirements for standard definition (640x480x30 or 768x576x25) xvid/divx. The line for them is the pentium 3 range (see also xbox). For high-definition i don't know because we don't have HD TV in my place, but it is certainly true that the cpu requirements rise very fast with the resolution.

[cool_thing76]

Thank you so much guys that was very helpful...

[Blue_MiSfit]

@ unmei:

you are definately right. I can play 720x480 x264 with CABAC and 3 bframes on my little P3 700 MHz laptop with 192 MB of RAM and win2k through MPC, CoreAVC and the Overlay Mixer :)

Of course, that's only on the LCD @ 1024x768. The video card cant handle scaling to anything higher than that, no matter the input format.

Still, pretty cool what a wimpy P3 can do!

~MiSfit