Would you be fine with a widescreen monitor with a 4:3 mode? The early 4:3 LCDs typically had poor refresh rates, but you would have more options with newer widescreen monitors.

This thread may be of interest:

Widescreen monitors and 4:3 aspect ratio compatibility thread

Dell 19" monitors work pretty well for all my retro needs. 5:4 but there are basically no 4:3 LCDs out there, and the stretch is not really noticable. Many late Win98 games support 1280x1024 anyway.

kolderman wrote on 2022-10-09, 07:27:

Dell 19" monitors work pretty well for all my retro needs. 5:4 but there are basically no 4:3 LCDs out there, and the stretch is not really noticable. Many late Win98 games support 1280x1024 anyway.

And for the games that don't support 1280x1024, but can use 1280x960, you can choose aspect ratio scaling (or centered output) in Nvidia drivers. This gives you two thin black lines at the top and bottom of the screen but provides a very sharp image:

I think this only works with a DVI connection, at least when using 45.23 drivers under Win98. As I recall, ATi cards have a similar option as well.