I have the hostgator basic dedicated server at the moment and it's absolutely crap! I get about 20k uniques for various websites and all my sites are a lot slower than when I used their shared hosting. I've eyed the planet dedicated servers - their first option at $149 (also offered me upgrade to 2GB for free, would that make a large difference?) which seem to be better already than the basic hostgator ones, am I right? These two are the only ones I know but what host would you recommend for dedicated?
Conroe CPU is much better than old P4 CPU. Also, 2GB RAM will help. However, if I am not wrong, HG offers managed server, meanwhile server in TP is unmanaged. Do you have any experience in server management?