LR3 on a Hackintosh or G5?

[schrodingerscat]

I've been doing OK with PS CS4 on a tarted up Mini Core 2 Duo running 10.6.4. With LR it seems that a machine with multiple drive capability would be preferred. I've been using multiple external drives for backup and archiving, but LR seems to want easier access to work efficiently. And as the catalogs increase, I'll soon have to keep going to the externals more often.

I can't really justify picking up a Pro honker at this point, so have been toying with the idea of putting together a fairly high spec PC dedicated just for photo work. The gamers are constantly upgrading, so decent used components can be had pretty cheap these days. Several of the Mac sites I keep an eye on have reports of folks successfully running 10.6 on kludged machines, but wonder if LR3 would play nice with this sort of setup.

G5s can also be had for reasonable prices, especially if needing repair, so any feedback on performance with a dual core unit would be appreciated. I know going to a PowerPC is a step backwards, but wondering if slapping a bunch of RAM in it with multiple fast HDDs, as well as a high spec vid card, would make it a worthwhile project. Again, it would be a dedicated photo machine.

Any insight is welcome.

Thanks

PS - I'm completely new to LR, and yes, I would like to avoid running Windows 7. Trying to beat LR in my aging noggin is hard enough without having to learn a new OS. Personally I'm system agnostic, but have been on Macs since '95.

[Schewe]

Lightroom 3 and Photoshop CS5 won't install and won't run on a Mac G5. Forget about it...minimum requirements oare a MacIntel chip and the more cores/ram the better.

[schrodingerscat]

Thanks for chiming in Jeff, hoped you would.

I had a nagging suspicion that was the case, thanks for verifying.

One out, one left on...

[loonsailor]

I don't really know the legal status of the hackintosh route, but I suspect (without having read it) that the MacOS license allows it to be run only on Apple hardware.  Even though it may run elsewhere, of course it's unsupported, and any future release may break it.  Also, I'm pretty sure that Adobe won't support their products running in that environment either, even though they may run fine in current versions.  Because of all that, I doubt you'll find anybody here that will recommend it to you.

[Wayne Fox]

Why a G5? If you're buying used, by now 2 generation old dual quad MacPro's can be had for pretty low prices, and while not the latest hardware, loaded up with ram and a 2 or 3 drive Raid 0 setup and things should be pretty robust.

[francois]

I would not purchase a PowerMac (or iMac) G5... Theses computers are becoming "vintage" or "obsolete" and Apple doesn't repair them anymore.
The list of "vintage" and "obsolete" Macs is here: http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1752

Follow Wayne's advice, try to find a used Mac Pro, you can upgrade it later with more RAM, better graphic card and faster HDs when your budget allows.

[schrodingerscat]

Yep, the Apple license specifies Apple only hardware.  Big Brother may be a reason for no response on that front, or no one has tried it. Looks like more trouble than it's worth in any case.

The G5 is moot, so will see how long it is till the Mini just doesn't cut it. Quad G5's can be had for $500 or so and Quad Pro's at least $1200. Obsolete and vintage are relative terms, in Apples case it referes to products they no longer support. Manufacturers move a product to the "end of service life" category once their repair parts supply starts to become depleted. I've got a Cube I've been repairing and upgrading as a learning project that works fine for accessing service manuals and watching LL tutorials. Still a competent little machine with lots of use left in it.