Resolutions for LCDs

[malachiv]

I've been working off of my Viewsonic 17" monitor, and I've been getting that itch to upgrade to a bigger and better monitor. What's been holding me back is my worry about the resolution. I tend to run my games at 1280 x 1024 resolution, which is the native resolution for my monitor, and it's fine for me. 90% of the games and apps that I run will run at 1280 x 1024, and a few of my games run at lower resolutions. If a game offers higher resolution than 1280 x 1024, I don't use it, because I don't know if my rig is up for it, and I'd rather have a quality image and smooth performance at 1280 x 1024 than go up in resolution and have to degrade the image quality for performance's sake. And my rig is not "biggest and best" but it's not crap either:

Intel Core 2 Duo E8200
2GB DDR3 1333 MHz
MSI OC Geforce 8800 GT 512MB
X-Fi sound card

So my question is: should I just stick with my Viewsonic 17"? Or has the technology progressed enough that native resolution isn't really that big of a deal anymore? Or can I afford to upgrade and run my games and apps at a higher resolution? Any advice would be greatly appreciated.

 

[cjl]

I'd say the 8800GT should be up to running almost anything at 1680x1050. 1920x1200 would probably slow it down for some things.

As for non native resolution? It isn't horrible to run at non-native, but you still want to avoid running out of native if possible. It has improved, but it definitely isn't perfect.