Are cobalt servers better than white box servers(amd, intel, etc.)? if not, why do lots of ppl want one?

Cobalts are a lot easier to manage/administer verses regular boxes. This has been discussed numerous times so try giving it a search and see what you come up with.

Cobalts are amd boxes... I'm not sure why blue boxes would be better then white (beige) ones :)

White boxes can be any computer system so I don't know what to compare them with... The primary reason for cobalts popularity (which seems to be dying - thank you sun) was their easy to use interface but now you've got Plesk, Ensim, Cpanel, and a bunch of others so there really isn't a great reason left for getting one imo.

Are cobalt servers better than white box servers(amd, intel, etc.)?
No. A current white box is typically built with between a 1Ghz and a 1.5 Ghz processor. The Cobal Raq 4 series is still running what is now pretty old hardware - ~450 Mhz AMD K62 processors which are very slow processors (about equal in power to an Intel Pentium 300 in my experience.) So if you want a Dedicated server because your site takes a lot of CPU, you can get a lot faster server with a white box than with a Cobalt.

With a white box you also have a lot more room to upgrade, RAM, Memory, etc. than with a Cobalt, and the upgrades are typically much cheaper. Although the price has come down, Cobalts are still a bit pricey for what you get compared to a custom built box.

If not, why do lots of ppl want one?
As has been said they are easier for a newbie to get started with because they're all setup and an all-in-one deal (easy control panel matched to known software/hardware.)

Also, if you're going for a low end server, you know exactly what you're getting with the cobalt (host buys cobalt off the shelf and plugs it in...). With a white box, you depend on the host to know what they're doing choosing hardware and putting the machine together, installing the intial software, etc. If they know what they are doing, you get a machine which is much faster and better than the Colbalt. If they don't, you might get a machine with unreliable hardware, or a bad software install which takes weeks for a newbie to figure out, etc.

So for starters is it better to buy cobalt raq4i or amd server from Rackshack! Which one?