noob question abt CCD size and noise

[zzyzx]

Hi to all the experts here, i'm interested in buying a new 18x zoom panasonic prosumer cam. the cam comes with 8 megapixel and 1/2.5" CCD sensor size. i have read that with 8megapizel, 1/2.5" sensor size is too small, which will cause image to be noisy.

my question is, if i want a clear and sharp noiseless pic, other than manually set (or force) the ISO at 100, will it help if i take pictures at lower picture size? that is to say instead of taking pic at full 8mega pizxel, i take the picture at probably 1024x960 size only.

Thanks for viewing..

[espn]

It will help because effectively by shrinking the image size downwards, you're throwing information away, in the process of course, certain amount of noise gets thrown away.