I would seriously suggest that you learn some more about dedicated boxes as they're not to be handled by a newbie you would spend more time on calls to support than actual work.
Many top hosts do have great virtual packages that have the same overall transfer per month and hosted with a handful of sites to reduce load. However this option reduces control of specific parts, so depending on what you use hosting for depends on what sort of hosting to get, for example an application will always need a box, however paysites do and can quite happily run on virtual.
