If I have iLife 08 and upgrade to Snow Leopard, will I get the newest version of iLife?

Depends.

Are you upgrading from Leopard 10.5?
> Then no. iLife is a separate product. It’s typically bundled with new Mac computer at purchase… but it’s not included as part of the OS.

Are you upgrading from Tiger 10.4?
> Then yes, sorta. You cannot get the $29 upgrade direct to Snow Leopard. Instead, you must buy the Mac Box Set for $169. It includes Snow Leopard, iWork ‘09, and iLife ‘09.

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Those of us who upgraded to Leopard 10.5 when it came out paid $129 for that guy. Plus we also had to buy iLife for $79 and iWork for $79, too. So, when considered from that perspective, if you’re upgrading from Tiger, then the Mac Box Set would actually be quite a bargain, saving you $118 over us suckers who paid our dues back in the day.

Interesting twist reported yesterday:

And, for owners of Intel-based Macs who are still using the older Tiger version of the Mac OS, Apple is officially making Snow Leopard available only in a “boxed set” that includes other software and costs $169. The reasoning is that these folks never paid the $129 back in 2007 to upgrade to Leopard. But here’s a tip: Apple concedes that the $29 Snow Leopard upgrade will work properly on these Tiger-equipped Macs, so you can save the extra $140.

@robmandu Okay thanks! Also, i’m pretty new to the Mac. I want to do a clean install. I don’t care about losing my files. Is that easy to do? Do I need to back up? Thanks!

Um, if you don’t care about losing your files/applications/settings then no, there’s no need to back up.

You can startup your Mac with the Snow Leopard install disk and tell it to wipe out the destination disk first before installing.

But you absolutely do not need to do so. We ain’t talking about a Windows upgrade here. Your Mac OS will upgrade just fine in place. And that is my recommendation… unless you simply feel your existing instance of Leopard is just too screwed up to be worth keeping.

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2nd part of my recommendation: if you do elect to install in place (not wipe out first), then yes you should back up your existing image. Consider making a bootable clone if you want to be absolutely safe.

A clearer recommendation and steps to follow from John Gruber:

In short:

1. Do a complete backup clone to an external FireWire [or USB] drive.
2. Test that the backup is indeed bootable and up to date.
3. Unplug the backup drive.
4. Boot from the installer DVD and perform a default upgrade.