NVIDIA is set to release the next-generation GeForce 20 Volta GPU likely in the first quarter of 2018. The rollout time was reportedly hinted by the confirmation sent out by memory chipmaker SK Hynix that GDDR6 DRAM chips will debut early next year.

"SK Hynix has been planning to mass produce the product for a client to release high-end graphics card by early 2018 equipped with high-performance GDDR6 DRAMs," Foss Bytes quoted the company's statement as saying. And apparently the client mentioned in the announcement is GeForce GTX card maker NVIDIA.

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When unleashed, GDDR6 memory chip will boasts of 16GBPS I/O data rate, which according to SK Hynix will be the fastest the GPU RAM in the world. "GDDR6 will be twice as fast as GDDR5 while having 10 percent lesser operating voltage," Foss Byte reported, adding that GDDR6 will become the standard for NVIDIA's upcoming Volta GPU platform.

With GDDR6 bumping off both the GDDR5 and GDDR5X chips when Volta touches down next, GeForce 20 is seen to easily take on high-performance GPU processing such as 4K graphics.

Specifically, GDDR6 on the Volta GPU will represent a 45 percent jump on memory bandwidth from NVIDIA's existing flagship cards, WCCFTech said in a related report. The GeForce GTX Titan XP and 1080 Ti both feature 530GBPS of bandwidth, which will be no match to the GDDR6 memory bandwidth of 768GBPS. As mentioned, the same feature will be unboxed with the Volta GPU.

But despite of having GPU muscle car capabilities, the Volta platform with GDDR6 memory will benefit from a more efficient energy management owing to the flagship card's lower power rating. According to WCCFTech, the feature is likely to encourage "GPU makers to take advantage of it across all market segments to capitalize on the power efficiency gains, even in scenarios where GDDR5X or GDDR5 might have been fast enough."

And most importantly, the Volta GPU with GDDR6 will translate to an affordable high-end PC gaming with the NVIDIA branding, positioning the platform on an interesting collision course with AMD's Radeon RX Vega series.