LCD recommendation?

I'm going to upgrade my Evga 7600GT to an 8800GT (512). My E6420 to Q6600.

Of course I want to play Crysis, etc close to maxed out.

I have a Samsung 1440x900 19" LCD monitor now. I'm looking to upgrade to a higher res monitor, like 1650 x whatever.

But I don't want to spend over $300. $500 out of the question.

I just game. Not heavy into photo editing anymore. No HD / movie editing. (not sure if those IPS panels matter much for gaming).

Any advice?

I guess what I'm asking is - 1680x1050 or 1900x1200 ? Which res will be able to run Crysis type games close to max settings on a q6600, 8800GT (512), 3gb's ram, vista 32bit ?

Thanks again!

I'd push you towards 1680x1050. At that rez your 88GT will deliver a lot better than at19x12. Also, 16x10 is a nice step forward in pixel increase and gets you used to widescreen gaming. You can find a slick 22" for about $300.

thanks. i'll keep my eyes out then for a 1680x1050 LCD in the 22" range. =)

that is true, your 8800gt will work better with the 1680 by 1050 res, but, as i can attest, you're going to want to go to 1920 by 1200 sooner or later.

i think that the most cost effective way of doing things is saving up another $100 or so for this monitor

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16824001275

i went the 20" lcd monitor route (got one with 1680 by 1050), and I love it...but i want more! i want to be able to watch hd 1080p content, but i can't on my current monitor...and if I am going to be able to, i have to save up an additional $400...if you just buy that 24" outright, you're going to be able to use it later when blu ray drives come down in price, and when the new graphics cards can pummel the high res settings...

If you go 19x12 now, you're probably going to have to lower some eye-cany settings in games for them to run. Of course you can get a bigger panel now and a better vid card later but its up to your wallet, really.

For a 22" LCD this is a real steal for the price and the performance of the display. Xbit Labs has a review on this monitor and with a little amount of tweaking you can have a great fast matrix with a super low RTC error rate, for basically $200 bucks.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16824236028

Review:
http://www.xbitlabs.com/articles/monitors/display/22inch-2_8.html#sect0

The TN panels with 2ms response time have a 6bit panel, 6 bit displays can only theoretically display 262,144 colors while the 8 bit displays can display 16.7 million colors. So the 8 bit panel makes a great viewing experience. Since the 8 bit has a better color range, it can display such things as gradients and vivid photographs with crisp smooth quality where as the 6 bit display will show banding. 8bit displays are good if you’re a photographer, artist, movie freak or anyone who enjoys a superior quality picture. On the other hand if you are into gaming the Tn panel could be the best option.

TN panels have flooded the market, and getting anything but one requires a $500 price tag or more. It is sad but that is what has become due to TN being cheap to make. The good news is TN panel tech has been advancing and is much better than what it was a few years ago. They are no CRT for color reproduction or for response time, but they have gotten fairly close with colors and really close with response time.

This is the one I'm looking at.

$355, 1920 by 1200 resolution, and a S-PVA panel. Gets great reviews from what I've seen as well. Although admittedly, that is the only place I've seen it that cheap and I've never bought from them before so I would check up on them first.