the video resolution you mentioned is easy to understand. Monitors have a Hrz rating. this is the moitors refreash rating based on screen resolution (i.e. 800x600 ,1024x768 ...) the higher the resolusion is upped on the monitor the lower the hrz rate drops ( slowing how fast a screen is redrawn).

In newier vidcards and monitors a vidcard can detectif its output Hrz is over what the monitor can handle at a resolution setting and will adjust itself.

unfortunaly you will still find many monitors on the market today that arn't ment very good at performace at higher resolution settings

example my monitor is rated at 85 hz at 1280x1024 resolution my GForce card is rated at 120 at the same resolution, so the vid card has to scale back to the 85 (and my monitor is a bit above the average monitor for hrz rating)
but a typical monitor hits 60hrz at

this all reflects back to your frame rate. basicly its 1 frame per hz at peak performance. so when shopping for monitors, its better to watch the hrz rating range then the viewable size. some good bucks can buy some very nice monitors rated at 120hz over 2048x rsolution ones typicaly used in CAD engineering and professional graphic work