Thoughts about fixed width vs. liquid layout

I’m in the process of planning the new Music and Games sites and I am currently batteling whether to use “fixed width” rather than “liquid layout” on the site. Today I use liquid as you can see the content adjusting automatically to the width of the browser window, but you can achieve better design (in my opinion) and also better readability with fixed width of the page. Statistics from a 2006 (yes I know, old info) show that about 60% are using a resolution of 1024×768 and up and only about 17% use the resolution 800×600. I would like to use a width of 960 pixels of the new web sites. I may do some testing with what I feel may be the optimal solution, that is a maximum width of 960 pixels but a fluid layout to accomodate for users still using lower resolutions. More on this topic later.