I think a 24" 1680 by 1050, would be good, i agree that while high res creens looks great they do require massive hardware to get consistant and high framerates on, i'd like a 24" screen but am likely to go for 22", the fact it's both slightly cheaper, but more importantly less demanding on hardware being a big factor, i like to run high details and get high stable framerates, on a 24" screen i'd need serious hardware to run the latest games at a solid 60 odd fps