Question about higher than max resolution?

So my monitor has a max resolution of 1280x1024@60 hz. Now cos AOE2 doesn't let you zoom out further I was thinking of increasing the resolution through steam commands to a larger 4:3 resolution such as 1600x1200 which my monitor definetly doesn't support (Maybe at 30 hz but ow).

My concern is, would forcing it to a higher than native resolution stress my PCs GPU which definatly can take it, or would I be actually running 1600x1200 on a monitor which doesn't support it eg overclocking. Before I try and force it this way I wanna know im not gonna trash my monitor.