Highly anticipated: After what's felt like a never-ending wait, AMD is finally unveiling its Zen 3 architecture and the next-generation Ryzen 'Vermeer' desktop CPUs later today. You can watch the "Where Gaming Begins" livestream right here, starting at 9 AM PT/ 11 AM CT / 12 PM ET / 5 PM BST.

Follow-up coverage: AMD Ryzen 5000 launch: "Fastest gaming CPU", higher clocks, higher prices

After months of assuming the new Ryzen desktop CPUs would use the 4000-series moniker, AMD has confirmed recent reports that they will use the 5000-series name, thereby avoiding any confusion with the Zen 2-based Ryzen 4000 mobile processors.

Intel has dominated the CPU industry for years. Many will remember when AMD was considered the inferior choice, especially when it came to gaming, but that started to change with the launch of its Zen architecture---Ryzen processors now account for over 25 percent of CPUs among Steam users, and their many cores combined with excellent price vs. performance results have seen AMD eat away at Intel's market share.

While Intel still leads when it comes to gaming performance, a recent leak suggests there'll be a Ryzen 7 5800X that could outperform team blue's flagship Core i9-10900K. Considering the name of AMD's event, and CEO Lisa Su's declaration that "it's going to be an exciting fall for gamers," the company appears to be aiming at a specific group.

We're expecting a number of upgrades in Zen 3, the most significant being the increase to instructions per clock (IPC). There's also a clock speed boost that could reach 4.9 GHz and numerous other improvements that come from the new architecture. The chips are built on TSMC's N7P or N7+ process, feature 32+ MB of unified cache, and use a Multi-Chip Module (MCM) design.