Hi!
I'm a newbie with dedicated hosting and I'm gonna take one dedicated server very soon.

I hope somebody can clarify myself: on rackshack.net pages you can read that they have both RAQ4i servers and RAQ2/RAQ2i servers.
Apart from memory & hard drives, which are the differences between the two? Why should I prefer a RAQ4i to a RAQ2i? Do they have the same administrator interface? Can I still upgrade softwares in the same way, following the instructions provided at the cobalt.com support site? Software updates (especially security bug fixes) can still be found for the two models? Will I be able to install the latest version of PHP and the latest release of the buggy sendmail or not? Or there is something I should really really know about? Moreover, on the official cobalt.com site RAQ2 seems unmentioned any more... mmhh...

I know that the greatest part of you won't understand why I want a RAQ2i: the problem is that I don't want to spend a fortune ($99 are not a lot for an American, I agree, but with the current dollars/euros charge $99 dollars for me - Italy - are like spending $200 dollars for an American)

I hope that somebody can answer my Hamletic doubt :)
Thanks in advance.

Well first of all the Raq2's are much older and come spreinstalled with somewhat-old software. With a Raq4(i) Cobalt are still releasing upgrades and updates however I'm not sure if Cobalt is still supporting the Raq2s.

The other main difference is the CPU. Forwhat I've heard the Raq2 uses a proprietary CPU (I think it might be MIPS based) while I'm pretty sure the Raq4 uses an x86 AMD chip. If you are trying to install software manually on the server the odd chipset on the Raq2 might make some programs not work right.

AFAIK the RAQ3 uses an AMD K6 @ 300Mkz and the RAQ4 uses an AMD K6 @ 450Mhz. I also understand that a different chip was used in the RAQ2 - but suffice it to say it will be inferior still to the RAQ3 let alone RAQ4.

don't forget that with the RaQ 2 you are going to have to update the DNS Bind and also hope you don't get too much web traffic as RaQ 2's are not suitable for big traffic websites