Monitor Help! I Want to Pwn My Son with Graphical Awesomeness

[Broken Clock]

Hello,

My son and I have decided to start gaming together (read: I have decided to join in on HIS gaming). I'm currently using a 21 inch LG at the usual 1680x1050. My friend is offering me an almost brand new Samsung 24 inch at the 1980x1080 for around 100 bucks (he just doesn't use his desktop anymore). Should I go for it?

My current set-up:
Graphics = 560ti
CPU = i5 2500k

Will I see a big performance drop if I go for the bigger monitor and resolution?

If I get the bigger monitor and I do see a big drop, is it okay to switch down to a lower resolution, or will that make things ugly and weird? Will the image quality of the 24 inch be comparable to the 21 inch at the same resolution, if I do decide to drop?

Do you really need AA with that high of a resolution?

Thanks for your help, guys.

 

[Maziar]

GTX 560 can handle almost all games fin at max settings on 1080p, and for that price,I'd definitely go for the 24".It's worth it.
As for AA,well in some games disabling it won't make a huge difference because resolutions like 1080p don't have much of jaggedness.

 

[ubercake]

You will see somewhat of a performance drop. Look at any review sites and find your 560 and the difference in performance between your current and upcoming resolution:

http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/nvidia-geforce-gtx-560-ti-gf114,2845-9.html

Tom's is one of few sites to include the 1080p resolution. This is such a popular monitor resolution these days. You wonder why more sites don't include this in their reviews?

You will be able to mess with the settings on most games to find a performance/quality balance point. I don't think your picture will have to look ugly to get to this balance point.

24inch at 1080 should have the same image quality as 1080p at 21 inches. When you start getting into 32" and above with 1080p is when you begin to see discernible dots/pixels at close range. If you have a larger 1080p television, walk up close while HD video is playing and you'll see what I mean. You won't have this issue at 24". I don't see the dots and I'm running 1080p on a 27 inch monitor.

AA is always important at any resolution as it smooths out the raw images' jagged edges.