01-27-2009, 08:32 PM

I was wondering if anybody knows much about processor upgrade cards for the iMac G3. Mine is tray loading, lime green, 333 Mhz and soon to have 512 Mb of ram. It has os 9.22 and I intend on putting 10.3 Panther on it as well. I'm wondering two things about the upgrade cards. 1- Availability, where do I get them; I've read most of them are either special order or discontinued. 2 - How much do they cost and are they worth it?

01-27-2009, 10:03 PM

Not worth it. No matter what you do with that machine it will still be hopelessly obsolete. Processor upgrades are available but cost hundreds of dollars. You could easily spend the same amount and get a much more recent machine which will be much more useful. Those old iMacs are still great to look at, but as a computer (especially in the case of the tray loaders) they are useless in this day and age. Even 10.3 is woefully slow on them.

01-27-2009, 11:25 PM

I guess where just hopelessly obsolete,as I have 3 Imacs. The slot load one is an internet box,the others a music production box and the last a business box for letters,bookkeeping etc. Im posting right now with an 8600 and its working
ok or is it just a trip in the Twilight Zone...OOOOOh.. Spooky.

01-27-2009, 11:32 PM

Are any of those G3s? I had a tray loading G3 iMac up until 2006, which hadn't been my main computer since 2002 or so. Web browsing was just about impossible, anything with flash or java brought it to a halt. Simple OS effects in 10.3 were jerky and slow and any somewhat modern application was unacceptably slow. This was a 333 Mhz model with 512 MB RAM and was in perfect working condition, with a fresh installation of OS X. The slot loaders are better, since they were anywhere from 350 to 700 Mhz and supported more RAM, as well as more graphics memory. The tray loading model the OP is asking about is a 333 Mhz tray loader, which is only upgradable to 512 MB of RAM (really old PC66 memory), and has a 6 MB graphics card, which is far to little to run OS X acceptably.

01-27-2009, 11:41 PM

There all G3's including the 8600.

01-28-2009, 03:55 PM

Why wouldn't I be able to hook up an external HD and have it stream music?

01-28-2009, 09:57 PM

Yes you can hook up a usb hard drive or cd burner,now doing dvds is a no go,although you can save data to dvd. I would not spend mega bucks upgrading your imac. Look for used stuff. It will never be a G5 , but you can have fun until something newer comes ago .....cheep, thats the name of this game.

01-28-2009, 10:16 PM

I want to upgrade to 512mb of ram on it

01-28-2009, 10:29 PM

You may or may not be able to. Some of them could handle 512, but not all. It seems to be completely random which ones would actually recognize it. As for using it as a media server, remember it only has USB 1.1, which is quite slow. I tried to use one to stream iTunes, and it would sometimes take up to a minute for a song to start playing when selected.

If I were you I would stop putting money into it right now. All it will really be good for is simple word processing. Instead look for at least a G4, preferably something over 1 Ghz.

01-29-2009, 01:52 PM

Originally Posted by Chimpur

I was wondering if anybody knows much about processor upgrade cards for the iMac G3. Mine is tray loading, lime green, 333 Mhz and soon to have 512 Mb of ram. It has os 9.22 and I intend on putting 10.3 Panther on it as well. I'm wondering two things about the upgrade cards. 1- Availability, where do I get them; I've read most of them are either special order or discontinued. 2 - How much do they cost and are they worth it?

To the best of my knowledge...only the original 233mhz G3 iMac had a processor upgrade option.

All other G3 iMacs did not have an upgradable processor (although I would guess some resourceful person out there may have been able to "hack, mod, or over-clock" their G3 processor).

- Nick

04-21-2009, 12:09 AM

The upgrade cards are available for ALL iMac tray models

04-21-2009, 06:04 PM

I already updated it with an xlr8 card to a g4 running at 400mhz

04-21-2009, 07:35 PM

Originally Posted by Chimpur

I already updated it with an xlr8 card to a g4 running at 400mhz

Good deal! Although depending on the cost of the upgrade card...I'm not sure a speed bump from 333 to 400mhz was worth it.

- Nick