[PowerPro2008]

I have a 400MHz Blueberry iMac G3 w/ 1GB RAM, and an 80GB HDD.

I am considering getting the 550MHz G4 upgrade from Daystar.

Is the 550MHz G4 going to be that much faster than my 400MHz G3?
Would it be a better idea to buy a 700MHz iMac G3 and just put the colored parts from my Blueberry G3 onto it, is the 700MHz G3 going to be faster than the 550MHz G4?

Will the G4 help with Facebook, Youtube, and Myspace?

Also, I want to upgrade the G3 to use as a normal use computer (no gaming; web browsing, iTunes, some YouTube), I know that buying a newer, faster machine would be a better idea, but I want to upgrade my G3 iMac because I hate to just let it sit in an attic for the rest of it's life.

Or, is there any way to overclock the G3 iMacs (Slot-Loading)? I've found websites for overclocking the original tray-loading iMac G3s, but none for the Slot-Loading G3s.

Thanks for your input.

[Big Mac]

You can get a whole lot more computer for the same money (and with much less effort compared to dealing with the internals of a G3 iMac). youtube will never run acceptably on a computer that age - people have said 733GHz G4s only barely keep up with youtube. But I do admire your desire to keep the computer in service.

[bpl323]

Invest in a new computer at this point.

[P]

Do not spend any money on upgrades - they simply don't make sense. If you like the case, make an aquarium or save it for a mod somewhere down the line.

Overclocking is possible by resoldering the PLL resistors. There used to be a table of exactly which resistors to resolder, but it seems like that table is not online anymore. The Wayback machine still has it, however. This is of course very far from recommended, but I remember that all who tried this back then could at least get the first iMac DV to 500 MHz.. The particular G3 in those iMacs were never binned higher than 500 MHz (the faster G3s were a new stepping called cx), so don't go crazy and try 1 GHz or anything like that.

There is also a software overclock where only the L2 cache is overclocked to 200 or 266 MHz (default is 160 MHz). Easiest way is with the Powerlogix software, but I can't find that online anymore either.