Banding in the Layer Mask?

Hello,
I have:
Windows Xp Service Pack 3
4GB RAM
Geforce 560ti
PS CS5 extended
I am a photographer and submit the images to an agency.They inspect images at 100% for technical quality.
While preparing an image today, I used a layer mask in the levels adjustment.I used brush with 0% hardness and just clicked once with black color selected.But I found some severe banding.I alter clicked on the layer mask and found the same banding at 100%.I have not noticed such a thing till date.
https://dl.dropbox.com/u/42878955/1.jpg
I did try copy pasting the layer mask to show it to you guys, but when I saved it as jpeg and viewed the jpeg file, there was no banding.However I can see the banding even if view the jpeg of the image above.I tried on another images too but the same problem.It used to be very smooth before.Have made no changes to the default settings.Tried with both OpenGL on and off.
Why does this happen?

Noel Carboni wrote:
c.pfaffenbichler wrote:
When I set 16 bit in Camera Raw from the beginning and then opened in PS in 16 bit, and then did the same processing, I see the banding till I zoom in to 50% but not onwards 66.67%.
So at Actual Pixels the problem is not visible in 16bit?
Just FYI, layer combination for the Photoshop preview display is done for zoomed out levels in 8 bits, to optimize for speed, regardless of whether you're working in 16 bits/channel, unless you have the Cache Levels preference set to 1.
Further info: at least with my GPU, layer combinations in 32 bits-per-channel mode remain unbanded (unquantized) at all zoom levels with multiple cache levels. I dare say there will be a performance hit in some cases but it looks really good.
I would like to see an option in Preferences > Performance so the user can decide whether to sacrifice performance or display quality in greater than 8 bpc modes. In many cases, the reduced performance probably would be unnoticeable or negligible, whereas the reduced display quality can be very noticeable.

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