Seriously the misinformation going on around here just shows how computer-illiterate the Minecraft community can be.
Storage is measured in bytes, bandwidth (this is what internet speed is measured in) is measured in bits.
Megabytes per second = MB/s
Megabits per second = Mbps
The strange misconception between server owners that you need 16GB of RAM to host any kind of server is rediculous. It may be a bit of an anecdote, but my server uses about 1.5GB of RAM with a full 24 players online. My server is heavily optimized, but it's nothing that limits gameplay, just tweaking the right settings (and by this I do not mean copy & pasting some kids "improve your performance launch script").
Some other words of wisdom: Don't run any serious server on a VPS, especially not any "minecraft server host". You may be able to allocate a fixed amount of disk capacity and RAM, but CPU usage is much more dynamic and therefore cannot be allocated in the same way. When you get a "core" on a VPS, you are not getting a dedicated core of the server's CPU, but rather a virtual core, which guarantees nothing in terms of performance. With VPS' you share a server with many other clients, the lower end your VPS is, the more clients will be sharing that particular server. If one (or more) of those clients are doing something that takes a heavy amount of CPU, they could effectively be taking your CPU resources, leaving you with about 5% of the CPU time you "should" have. The bottom line: If it's going to be a serious server, get a dedicated box.
As far as bandwidth goes, I run my 24 player server comfortably (no lag at all) with a 6Mbps upload speed. So the 100Mbps minimum that you get with most server hosts is more that most people will ever need.
AMD CPUs are considerably worse than Intel's when it comes to Minecraft, the main reason being that AMD CPUs have terrible IPC which results in poor single-threaded performance, which is the most important factor Minecraft server hosting as most of the work goes through 1 thread. As others have said, it is blind to judge a CPU on clock speed alone, a 2GHz quad-core CPU with twice the IPC as a 3GHz quad-core CPU with still vastly outperform it.
Last but not least for all the kids out there: RAM IS NOT THE DEFINING FACTOR OF A SERVERS PERFORMANCE, ASKING A SERVER OWNER TO "ALLOCATE MORE RAM TO THE UNITED STATES TO REDUCE LAG" WILL MAKE YOU LOOK LIKE A MORON TO ANYONE WITH THE SLIGHTEST BIT OF COMPUTER KNOWLEDGE. (Yes, someone actually asked me this).
Wow, that's a lot of text... I guess having to deal with so many people that think they know anything about servers when they know nothing so often is the cause of the pent-up rant material. Feel free to copy & paste this post when someone spreads misinformation.
