Running a high rez monitor at lower rez

Well, I think this should be my last question before I buy (I tend to way over analyze my purchases, but it works out well in the end)

I found this monitor. It is 23", but 2048 x 1152.
The card I am looking at is a 4870 1g.
Now, I am going to have 2 monitors and I had a pair of 1920x1080 picked out, but I do like the resolution on the samsungs. Can the video card handle games on 1, non-games on the other? And, worse case scenario.....How would a monitor like that look with the rez turned down a bit to a slightly lower level? I have never had to deal with resolutions above my 15.4 inch screen, so this resoultion/vs card power/multiple monitors thing is new to me.

the card you picked out can easily handle multiple displays. however, the resolution on the samsungs is seriously stretching it. a 4870 1gb can probably handle gaming at that resolution, though it might be a better choice to go with a 4890 or GTX275/285.

and yes, if you game, the game will only run on one monitor, leaving the other one free to display a desktop. i generally keep a bunch of stuff open in the second monitor when i game, such as ventrilo, hardware monitors when i'm bench marking something, etc.

LCD monitors and many digital displays have a native resolution. In the case of LCDs, they have a fixed number of pixels, and must use scaling to accommodate any other resolution. How that will look depends on the sophistication of the circuitry and your own subjective preference. If at all possible, try to match the native resolution to the source images or video for the best picture. I think scaling down looks better than scaling up, but that's my opinion.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Native_resolution