The only thing 10bit really does is improve gradient performance. But even in HDR you can easily get away with 8bit if you're bandwidth limited with next to no visual difference to 10bit. The only reasons to use 10bit is if you are a professional working with colors or if you want to use HDR, where 10bit is part of the spec. Theoretically you will only need 8bit in most cases. I can't remember atm how many steps there are with 10bit. With 8bit there are 256 steps in between black and fully saturated. But like you said it will introduce more colors in between. So theoretically you can achieve any color space coverage you want, be it full sRGB, DCI-P3, AdobeRGB or Rec2020 with just 8bit. A higher bit depth introduces more steps in between the min and max values. 10 bit has over 1 billion colors within it so it helps to be even that much more precise with color accuracy.īit depth has nothing to do with color space, as this is only limited by the monitors gamut coverage. The min and max values (black and fully saturated colors) will stay the same no matter if you use 8bit or 10bit.

8 bit is the standard 16.7million colors with SRGB. Biggest thing is the much wider color space.

Default nvidia color settings