xserve deal?

A 2008 machine running Snow Leopard isn't much of a deal at any price if you are thinking of using it as a server. You are buying an OS which is out of current Apple support and hardware that (might not) run Mountain Lion Server, never mind Mavericks Server when it comes out.

If all you care about is a fast 8-core tinkering machine and you don't need current OS or support then go for it. If you are thinking you can upgrade to a newer (newest?) OSX, run away. Run away quickly.

 

I can't think of any reason you'd want one. They're really loud. I can't think of anything you couldn't do with a used Mac Mini (unless hot-swappable power supplies are really important to you for some reason).

Hey also, if you're going to snark about Windows in your signature, you might want to get the difference between "you're" and "your" straight.

 

What do you intend to do with it? If it's just as a home server, an early Mac mini with Snow Leopard server (I bought one) would be silent, use far less electricity, have greater disk capacity, and has a better chance of finding replacement parts. That's it's only two cores won't matter.