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In use, my FastMac G4 Pismo upgrade is performing flawlessly. In terms of performance, I don't perceive any substantial difference between the Pismo with the 550 MHz FastMac upgrade and the one with the 550 MHz Daystar upgrade. It's not an entirely even comparison because one unit has a 4,200 RPM HD and 640 MB of RAM while the other has a 5.400 RPM HD and 576 MB of RAM. For what it's worth, the faster hard drive seems to be a bigger relative factor than the respective G4 upgrades.

The difference in performance you will experience over a stock 400 MHz or 500 MHz G3 will depend on the sort of stuff you do with computers. The biggest advantage of the G4 processor is its support for Motorola's Altivec "Velocity Engine" technology, but which requires software applications optimized for Altivec to take full advantage of. For example, I use Adobe Photoshop Elements a lot, and it's Altivec optimized, as were most of the late PowerPC era Apple software applications and to some degree OS X itself. You really notice a difference with the G4 upgrade running those programs.

On the other hand, running non-Altivec optimized applications, the difference in going from 400 MHz or 500 MHz G3 to 550 MHz G4 will be more subtle, although the boost in clock speed is obviously to the good. Daystar claims that their 550 MHz G4 upgrade running in a Pismo is as fast as an 800 MHz Titanium PowerBook.