As our long-time readers are keenly aware, the product cycles followed by PC OEMs and ODMs for their laptops and desktops are rarely perfectly in sync with the development cycles of the underlying processors. With a desire to refresh their PCs on a yearly basis ? whether or not new processors are available ? OEMs lean on their suppliers to come up with newer parts to fill out these devices. Consequently, it has become a semi-annual ritual for the GPU vendors to rebadge parts of their lineups to meet the needs of OEMs, shuffling together old and new parts as part of a continuous cycle of upgrades and replacements.

Kicking off this latest cycle, this week AMD quietly updated the laptop GPU section of their website to add the Radeon M400 series, the latest generation of AMD's notebook (and AIO desktop) GPUs. And to cut right to the chase, while this year is going to be an important year for AMD with the launch of their Polaris architecture and its accompanying GPUs, Polaris isn't upon us quite yet. Instead what AMD has published are the customary 28nm rebadges that will be fleshing out the M400 line, presumably positioned around where Polaris will land a bit later this year.