G3 -> G4 iMac for $100

[Lord Blackadder]

Daystar's newest upgrade kit gives the trayloading iMacs a 400MHz G4 for $100. Not bad, though it's often more popular to get a used G4 tower, they're getting cheaper by the day.

Sonnet's HARMONi gives you a 600MHz G3 plus a firewire port (a great mod), but it's $300, far more than any G3 iMac is worth. I seriously considered one of these when they first came out, but they haven't dropped the price in years...

I still use my Rev. C iMac for a few things, such as sharing it's printer over the network. It's running Panther and does OK with the stock CPU, but for people interested in stretching the life of their G3 iMac the Daystar upgrade might make sense. Since it's a 7410 chip I'll bet it does not respond very well to overclocking however (not that I'd reccomend that in an iMac anyway). Also it remains to be seen how useful a 400MHz G4 would be running Leopard, especially on the iMac's 66Mhz bus...

Anybody out there still using a G3 trayloading iMac day-to-day?

 

[sikkinixx]

I use a 400mhz G3 DVD-slot loading one day-to-day. My PC is using being used by someone else and my laptop is about to be sold so that leaves me with old graphite

 

[brop52]

I'm using my trusty indigo 500 MHz. iMac until this summer when I can finally buy a new iMac.

 

[Killyp]

I 'permanently loaned' my G3 iMac (slot loading, 350 MHz, Tiger) to a friend who's into photography and desperately short of cash. He runs photoshop on it, as well as being a heavy user of iTunes (I stuck an 80gb drive in it for him). Photoshop runs pretty well, CS1 actually runs faster on his iMac than it does under Rosetta on my MBP (although I have CS3 now muhahaha). iTunes can be a tad sluggish, although it's still very usable. iPhoto is a complete no-go, although surprisingly even Office is fast enough.

It even plays Quake 1 and 2 with no issues!!

G3 iMacs ftw =]

 

[4JNA]

grape slotty 400 running tiger on a 7200rpm drive. works well for kids stuff and guest internet access.

 

[Lord Blackadder]

I have to say that swapping out the stock HDD for a new one makes a big difference in performance - and is soooo much quieter.