Yes some displays can differentiate 1024 steps in a single channel zero to one gradient. What I mean is, if you draw a gradient from pure red (1.0 0.0 0.0 1.0) to black (0.0 0.0 0.0 1.0) on an 8 bit display with an 8 bit pipeline (app, operating system, graphics card, the whole nine yards), not taking into account irregularities in either the source or destination profiles, you’d see 256 steps if you were to zoom in closely. Each stage of the pipeline only carries 8 bits of information, so you’d never see more than 8 bits worth of differentiation, 256 steps. This is easier to prove to yourself in a narrow range gradient across a visibly large section of the display, so let’s say you draw a gradient from 64.0/255.0 to 67.0/255.0 in the red channel across 128 pixels. You’d see four bands each about 32 pixels across. On a 10 bit display if the app, operating system and graphics card all support 10 bit, you’d see four times that many steps, so 16 steps between 64 and 67, or 1024 steps between 0 and 255.