Ladies and gentlemen, my new special place:
I just bought a Philips 23" monitor, and as I was trying to find a place for my old monitor an idea struck me: why not use them both? It's funny that this desired form and performance of my desktop took 3 years to develop. Little savings, little upgrades here and there... Patience is a virtue. Although a HD4850 and an Intel E6500 might seem old, that's what the money gives me access to.
This might be useful as I just cooked a mod idea and how I will handle it in train trip today( things like these always happen when I get bored and the imagination starts wondering around...). It's nothing sure though, this mod was supposed to see the light of the... hammer months ago, at the end of spring. And it never happened. I just have the idea and have to work on it. Only a seed that needs to be grown...
Now about that monitor: It's a W-LED 23", 1920x1080 res, 5 ms display. In some respects, my old monitor seems to be better. It's either that or I got too used to it, but I have the feeling that the new monitor is not showing quite natural colors, although photos, videos and games( I played Portal 2 at 1080p, wonderful!) look good. But hey, at least it only consumes half of my monitor and weighs waaay less. The cost? Almost 150€, savings of about 5 months.
Put your tower on the floor and put the secondary monitor somewhere sensible and level with the primary one.
[edit] not so easy, but I might try that.
That's the reason I never even TRIED leaving my old 17" CRT nearby when I got the LCD
It's funny because if I follow this logic, I get called an idiot for not simply saving up instead. Keep with this and eventually you'll get another monitor, then dual monitor that shit.
I can't be thinking about getting a new monior, times are rough and my parents would kick my ass. Besides, I have to save for a laptop... for when I go to the university.
Anyways, use the shit out of that 1080p.
And as Pengy said, DisplayFusion is the shit and I also highly recommend it.
On that note, having two monitors doesn't abuse your graphics card. Most modern cards are designed to use them.