Personally, I would never game on anything less than 30's. Anything else looks sad if you are going to put in the money for the video cards in the first place.
I find the 30" DELL to be the heavyweight. 2560x1600 and they've last me many years. Here is the newest model that can be had as low as $999 or a little less during their various sales:
http://accessories.dell.com/sna/prod...=baynoteSearch
Monoprice has their version but obviously (much) cheaper with their associated issues. $600-$700. I don't have a good feel for them though, you should probably do some research before going that route:
http://www.monoprice.com/Category?c_...&cs_id=1130703