How long will the current iMacs with LGA1156 be able to run OSX for?

[rumorhasitthat]

How long? Or is it worth waiting for new macs next year with lga1155 (new intel chipset coming out probably in january 11th)

would there be any compatibility issues with osx 10.7 if i got the 1156 macs?

 

[crazzyeddie]

Absolutely no issues here. Apple unofficially supports running the latest OS on a machine for about 5 years... the biggest exception was when Apple switched to Intel and G5 users can't run Snow Leopard.

However, any Intel machine ever made can run Snow Leopard, including the original Core Duo machines. Those machines came with 10.4.

 

[Umbongo]

How long? Or is it worth waiting for new macs next year with lga1155 (new intel chipset coming out probably in january 11th)

would there be any compatibility issues with osx 10.7 if i got the 1156 macs?

There shouldn't come a point where an LGA1155 based iMac isn't outdated and an LGA1156 based is. The performance differences aren't that big. You should have no compatability issues with 10.7.

 

[alust2013]

Since the performance difference is fairly small, I don't think there will be a difference at all. Since processor tech isn't making the leaps and bounds that it was 10-15 years ago, I imagine any intel Mac should be able to run OS X until well after its expected/reasonable lifespan is over.