The general guideline I've followed for scope bandwidth is to buy a scope that has 3x the bandwidth of the highest frequency signal you're measuring. This is to allow as much bandwidth as possible to see harmonics and other artifacts in a signal when you're measuring at the upper end of your range. So, is 1GHz necessary? For the home hobbyist and experimenter, I'd say not so much. If you need to measure over 333MHz, I'd consider it.
Here's what I've got at my lab, affectionately called The Blockhaus:
Add to that all the test leads, tweezers, tools, probes, picks, wick, plungers, suckers and solder that usually goes with a joint like this.
The general guideline I've followed for scope bandwidth is to buy a scope that has 3x the bandwidth of the highest frequency signal you're measuring. This is to allow as much bandwidth as possible to see harmonics and other artifacts in a signal when you're measuring at the upper end of your range. So, is 1GHz necessary? For the home hobbyist and experimenter, I'd say not so much. If you need to measure over 333MHz, I'd consider it.