Confused I am

I can currently 4 table on my laptop at 1600 x 1200 but the screen must scroll slighty in order to do this. My question is if I buy a smaller monitor to 8 table (say a 17 inch with a max res of 1280 x 1024) can I run it at 1600 x 1200 and have it do the same thing (scroll slightly) or does the monitor have to have a max res of 1600 x 1200 to run it at all?