When to upgrade from shared hosting to dedicated server?

[Xplorer4x4]

Based on stats like active users,online users,threads,posts,etc, about when is a good time to decide to upgrade to a dedicated server?

[bashy]

All i can say is, a good time to upgrade is when you have outgrown your current server/host
Such as server load is not acceptable and damaging the performance of the site,
Or ya host tells you ya using too many resources,
would like to know how they know that though, i cannot find any software that will report stuff like that :(

[Xplorer4x4]

Well i was hopping for more obvious answer then when the host says. :p

What server levels would be deemed as "damaging performance" of the site.

I mean right now my server loads are: 0.70 : 0.65 : 0.64. But at times all three will be in the 1.2 range but the baord runs fine while other times there under that load it can be slow.

[irishblacknight]

Server load is meaningless, as it's just the average number of processes

The things to watch out for are responsiveness.

Not load