In 2012, AMD began shipping its mobile line-up of Radeon HD 8000M-series just in time for the arrival of 2013. AMD unveiled today the latest addition to that mobile GPU family, its upcoming series of Radeon HD 8900M chips.  

The Radeon 8900M-series flagship, the 8970M, packs twice the number of stream processors found in its 8870M counterpart, giving it a total of 1280 stream processors (or 20 compute units). AMD's newest mobile powerhouse also boasts a speedier memory bus (GDDR5 @ 1.2GHz) and higher-clocked graphics core (850MHz).

In case you're curious to compare, the desktop variant of the HD 8970 (pdf) is expected to feature 2048 stream processors and a 1.5GHz memory bus. As mobile versions often are, the 8970M is scaled down from its a bigger brother but still remains a remarkable piece of equipment to cram inside a laptop-sized portable.

According to AMD's own benchmarks, its Radeon HD 8900M is up to 54 percent faster than Nvidia's best mobile offering, the Geforce GTX 680M. Of course, don't expect such claims to be based on entirely impartial testing though – you can bet AMD probably isn't showing its worst results.

Coordinating with AMD's announcement, MSI will be launching a rejiggered line of GX70 laptops. GX70s destined to house AMD's highest-end mobile GPU are expected to arrive as soon as next month. The nearly nine-pound laptop will also come equipped with AMD's fastest Richland-based A10-5750M APU, a matte 17.3" 1080p display and a 7800mAH battery pack. One of the best features of this laptop has to be its price though: about $1100 MSRP.