When the 128 has substancially higher speed ram its better. Considering with the trerrain upgraids we get the 256 will get some use, but only worth it if its fast.
I think skuzzy posted a calculation of necessary video ram for certain settings of texture size and anti alialising, but it did not figure in texture compression.
My card driver lists something like 140 MB in use, with 512 texture size, so i would take a gues that does not fit in 128 MB cards, but only barely so the hit should not be to big.