Educate me on LCD monitors!

[Donshyoku]

I am selling my craptop and going to get an LCD monitor with the funds from it. My price is $300 and I already have a taker. So, I am skimming Newegg for LCDs only to find that I know little to nothing about them. So I have a few questions...

1) What does the response time actually mean and how will it affect normal usage and gaming?

2) How bad is it to avoid your native resolution. I want at least a 17" LCD, but I only run my games at 1024x768, lower than most standard native resolutions. I couldn't run at 1280+ resolution if I wanted to with my 6600 (non-GT) video card. Will 1024x768 on a 17" LCD be too bad to look at?

3) Where are the best places to find cheap LCDs. I want to get as big of a monitor as I can get with $300, but I want it to look good in terms of little ghosting.

Thanks in advance!

As I look around, I will probably find more questions, if so, stay tuned!

Thanks again!

 

[TehQuick]

1) the faster, the less u will notice ghosting/motion blur
2) non-native res makes image fuzzy. Here, it helps to have a larger monitor, with 18" I couldn't play at non-native, it was fuzzy, with 20" and 24" it's alright but still not too good
3) Dell frequently sells cheap LCDs (watch hot deals forum). Lately, I noticed that they were selling 19" LCD for just about $300 ... or jump on this deal here
http://www.hardforum.com/showthread.php?t=886172

Last, don't procrastinate, they are rumored to go up in price
http://www.hardforum.com/showthread.php?t=886424