Latest Steam survey: Nvidia's mid-range GPUs top the charts, a bad month for AMD

[midian182]

What just happened? The latest Steam survey has arrived, and it's not the best news for AMD. Team Red's processors lost more user share to Intel for the second month in a row – something that has become a rarity – while its most popular RDNA 3 GPU has fewer users than Nvidia's RTX 4080 and expensive RTX 4090.

Starting with the Steam survey's best-performing GPUs chart, March was a good month for Nvidia's newer mid- to higher-end cards. Seven of the top eight were variants of RTX 3060/70 and RTX 4060/70 products, with the RTX 3060 taking the number one spot. The RTX 4080 and 4090 didn't fare so well, with growth either flat or negative. The RTX 2070 and 2080 saw some gains, too.

The best performing GPUs among Steam survey participants during March

Looking at the most popular GPUs, the RTX 3060 remains king, cementing its position at the top with a 0.75% user share increase. March's results suggest a preference among survey participants for newer 3000- and 4000-series cards, which mostly saw gains, unlike the older GPUs.

The most popular GPUs among Steam survey participants during March

AMD remains in the shadow of rival Nvidia. The company's highest dedicated graphics card is the Radeon RX 580 in 29th position. Its most popular RDNA 3 GPU, the Radeon RX 7900 XTX, is in the bottom half of the table with a user share of 0.34%. For comparison, the RTX 4080 has a 0.80% share and the RTX 4090 is at 0.91%.

AMD struggled in the CPU section last month, too. The firm reached its highest-ever user share in this category in January (34.25%), but has since fallen to 31.22% after losing users for the second month in a row. Intel, meanwhile, is edging closer to the 70% and higher share it had held for so long.

March also marked the second month in a row that Windows 10's user share increased. The older OS jumped 2.7% in February as Windows 11 fell 2.28%. Last month, Windows 10 was up 0.21% to 54.4% as its successor fell 0.35% to 41.6%. Valve dropped Steam support for Windows 7, 8, and 8.1 in January, but versions 7 and 8 are still hanging on. Elsewhere, Linux is now used by almost 2% of survey participants, with Arch Linux 64-bit the most popular distro.

One section of the survey that seems to change leader regularly is the most popular languages category. Simplified Chinese passed English to take the top spot in February and remained there during March, though only by a small margin.

Looking at other parts of the survey, 8GB is the most common amount of VRAM while 16GB is the most popular amount of RAM, despite some games starting to demand more of both these days. 1080p is the most common monitor resolution, most participants have six physical CPUs, and the majority of people have 100GB to 249GB drive space free.

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Latest Steam survey: Nvidia's mid-range GPUs top the charts, a bad month for AMD

 

[Disiw]

AMD lost GPU and CPU marketshare. Zen 5 is needed badly. Lets go.

GPU market is already lost. Focus with RDNA4 should be price/performance and FSR needs to be massively improved to match DLSS/DLAA. However that is not happening with FSR in its current state. They need to rebuild it ground up. Even Intel XeSS is much better than FSR in pretty much all games. DLSS/DLAA is king tho.

 

[WhiteLeaff]

If you do your research, you'll soon realize that it can't be taken seriously.

In the real world, Windows 10 has a market share of almost 70%.

 

[Disiw]

If you do your research, you'll soon realize that it can't be taken seriously.

In the real world, Windows 10 has a market share of almost 70%.

More like ~75% with Mac OS at 12-15% leaving around 10% for Chrome OS and Linux.

~99% of PC gamers are using Windows. People simply don't buy a high-end gaming GPU and then installs Linux. LMAO. I have 25 years experience with Linux for servers, but for desktop usage and especially gaming, hell no. Thats like asking for trouble. You will get inferior performance in 99.9% of games and spend hours on fixing crashing and issues.

Pretty much all PC game developers have one focus only: Windows.
And even Windows gets rushed console ports that runs like crap.

Steam can easily be taken seriously. It is the biggest and most popular PC gaming platform by far. Nothing even comes close.

AMD fanboys in denial just won't believe reality. I understand, considering AMD has little to no GPUs in top 25. Their flagship 7900XTX is at like spot 50 most popular GPUs with Nvidia completely dominating the list.

3060 pretty much outsold entire Radeon 6000 and 7000 series - Thats reality for you.

AMD needs to wake up if they don't want to drop below 10% dGPU marketshare soon. FSR and drivers + features in general needs to be massively improved, or people simply won't bother saving a few dollars while getting inferior overall performance and features, while using more power in the process.

Rumours claim AMD is going back to monolithic for RDNA4. 1st gen MCM for GPUs was a failure for AMD really. They delivered subpar performance with higher power usage across the board and RT performance is still useless with no proper upscaler to help, because FSR is the worst upscaler today, beaten by XeSS and destroyed by DLSS/DLAA.

AMD generally needs to spend more R&D money to be competitive. They try and copy/paste Nvidia's features all the time, yet falls short every single time.

AMD Anti Lag + that got people VAC banned was a prime example of how AMD is rushing their features, that barely work.

Also AMDs Frame Generation is soooo bad compared to RTX 4000 series. Tried them both. It is night vs day. Both FSR 3 FG and AFMF is a ghosting mess.

And this is why most AMD GPU users hate upscaling and frame gen; They have not tried the Nvidia way. They think FSR and FSR 3 FG / AFMF is how Nvidia look as well, but its not. DLSS/DLAA is FAR BETTER than FSR with little to no shimmering and artifacts.

AMD is cheaper for a reason.
If AMD was ACTUALLY competitive in the GPU segment, their pricing would be different. It is as simple as that.

AMD will give up the high-end segment completely with RDNA4. Thats reality. RDNA4 / Radeon 8000 series will compete with 5060 series. That is how far AMD is behind now. Sadly.

 

[WhiteLeaff]

More like ~75% with Mac OS at 12-15% leaving around 10% for Chrome OS and Linux.

~99% of PC gamers are using Windows. People simply don't buy a high-end gaming GPU and then installs Linux. LMAO. I have 25 years experience with Linux for servers, but for desktop usage and especially gaming, hell no.

Steam can easily be taken seriously. It is the biggest and most popular PC gaming platform by far.

AMD fanboys in denial just won't believe reality. I understand, considering AMD has little to no GPUs in top 25. Their flagship 7900XTX is at like spot 50 most popular GPUs with Nvidia completely dominating the list.

3060 pretty much outsold entire Radeon 6000 and 7000 series, and 3060 was not even a good card because GPU was weak and gimped. Thats reality for you.

AMD needs to wake up with RDNA4 if they don't want to drop below 10% dGPU marketshare soon. FSR and drivers + features in general needs to be massively improved, or people simply won't bother.

Exactly the kind of comment I expect from a fanboy

It actually represents a fraction of a small group that optionally agrees to take part in the survey, not to mention the countries that automatically opt out. Yeah, That doesn't include me.

 

[Achaios]

"AMD remains in the shadow of rival Nvidia. The company's highest dedicated graphics card is the Radeon RX 580 in 29th position. Its most popular RDNA 3 GPU, the Radeon RX 7900 XTX, is in the bottom half of the table with a user share of 0.34%. For comparison, the RTX 4080 has a 0.80% share and the RTX 4090 is at 0.91%."

It is quite clear AMD GPU division needs a paradigm shift here. AMD GPUS have fallen to irrelevancy.

Regarding STEAM hardware Survey:

I took a Steam Hardware Survey on my dual GPU laptop abt a month ago. The CPU is a Skylake 6200U with the integrated HD 520 GPU but the GPU I am using to play games with is the laptop's main GPU which is an AMD Radeon R5 M330.

When Steam Survey was completed I was shown a summary and nowhere was a mention of my Radeon GPU. I am guessing that the Steam Survey has failed to detect it.

Instead, the completed Survey showed that my laptop only had one GPU, the Intel HD 520 which is obviously false and misleading.

 

[Disiw]

Exactly the kind of comment I expect from a fanboy

It actually represents a fraction of a small group that optionally agrees to take part in the survey, not to mention the countries that automatically opt out. Yeah, That doesn't include me.

You know nothing. I have more AMD chips than you for sure. CPUs and SoCs that is. AMD prime segment, which is not GPUs.

AMD has no dGPU I would touch right now. Performance, power draw, features and drivers in general is lacking big time. And this is why 8 out of 10 people buy Nvidia today.

AMD should look out for Intel Arc more than Nvidia at this point. Intel is coming fast for low to mid-end GPU market which is AMDs prime segment. Nvidia don't care about low end market at all.

Like 90% of AMD GPU sales are in the low to mid-end space. High-end dGPU market is a niche market for AMD. Which is why RDNA 4 won't have high-end GPUs.

Reality calls.

 

[WhiteLeaff]

You know nothing. I have more AMD chips than you for sure. CPUs and SoCs that is. AMD prime segment, which is not GPUs.

AMD has no dGPU I would touch right now. Performance, power draw, features and drivers in general is lacking big time. And this is why 8 out of 10 people buy Nvidia today.

AMD should look out for Intel Arc more than Nvidia at this point. Intel is coming fast for low to mid-end GPU market which is AMDs prime segment. Nvidia don't care about low end market at all.

Like 90% of AMD GPU sales are in the low to mid-end space. High-end dGPU market is a niche market for AMD. Which is why RDNA 4 won't have high-end GPUs.

Reality calls.

Really? You broke into my home, business, etc. and checked it out? Or... Did the voices in your head tell you?

Thanks for proving my point that you just talk about what you don't know or just repeat phrases of collective alienation "features" "bugworks" and so on. Get well with your problem.

 

[Beerfloat]

Steam survey seems to be on a bimonthly schedule where every month it flips to an alternate data source.
The Chinese flip, the Windows 11 drop and the Intel rise are all regular features now that will likely change again next month.

Either way, AMD RDNA3 is a totally ****ed generation. Its fans are loud and proud in every comment section but really just represent a vanishing minority. And it's not that surprising given the feature disparity.

 

[GodisanAtheist]

Nvidia users gon buy Nvidia no matter what at this point. The real threat to everyone here is ironically Intel.

I suspected for a long time that Intel is going to come in, take half of AMD's market share (so 5% each) and then eventually cause both AMD and Intel to exit the DGPU segment (Since each having a paltry bit of the market isn't enough to sustain development) leaving only NV to dictate prices.

 

[themastergoose]

So lets get this straight: CPU wise the industry largely agreed Ryzen 3000 series was the equaliser to Intel, and Ryzen 5000 and 7000 series pull ahead both in terms of perf and price.

So why on earth are AMD's CPU sales continuing to slide quarter to quarter then? I see so many times people on forums this past year, and even within this very thread referring to AMD as the "poor persons choice". That was the case with Bulldozer era, but it isn't the case today with Zen. Intel is objectively the worse choice isn't it (more expensive, on average slower, run hotter and have much higher TDP)?

As for Radeon, meh - I've no issues with my 6950XT but when what GPU I use comes up in my discord from time to time, almost all of the generation alpha's in there remark with "what's that?". They no nothing other than RTX/Nvidia and at this point AMD's facing such an uphill struggle I would not be surprised to see Radeon just throw in the towel in the dGPU space and just focus on APU's.

Lastly for what's it's worth where Radeon is concerned, the driver issues reported in the media month to month are massively overblown and kick the old can down the road regarding driver quality. Other than the drivers being a bit weird/unstable right when the 6950XT was new, it's been plain sailing for 18 months thereafter and it's doing me well.

 

[yRaz]

7000 series has the same problem that Intel had with their 6/7000 series against zen1. Intel is now cheaper but "fast enough" and AMD is expensive.

I don't even care about GPUs anymore, I'm just sick of the nVidia fanbois talking about how great they are. Know why 7900xtx is still selling for $1000 each? Because they're being bought up by the pallet by AI companies looking to save money that don't want to pay 20k each for nVidia chips.

I've never seen people cheer on a company like I see them cheer on nVidia. nVidia says "bite the pillow, I'm going in dry" and the gamers love it. They intentionally limit ram, they intentionally hardware lock features every generation essentially forcing people to upgrade if they want a playable experience. Do you know what's going to happen in 2-3 years? There are going to be more nVidia users using FSR than DLSS, same thing that happened with freesync. You want DLSS4? Better upgrade to a 50 series chip. The worst part is, AMD continues to turn around and show consumers that it's completely unnecessary to hardware lock these features.

 

[Lew Zealand]

<snip>

Steam can easily be taken seriously. It is the biggest and most popular PC gaming platform by far. Nothing even comes close.

<snip>

LOL all that fanboy whinging and blathering when the key statement is the one above.

The Steam Survey cannot be taken seriously because it's opt-in and many months the data changes drastically because those surveyed change drastically. It's not random, not even close. It's a marketing release to advertise Steam, that's all.

Only the most ignorant use the Steam Survey to make any sort of argument to support a point.

 

[Lew Zealand]

So why on earth are AMD's CPU sales continuing to slide quarter to quarter then?

Where do you see that, ie: sales data from which sources? I haven't come across any place with good generalizable sales data, as you could look at Mindfactory but that's mostly serving the German market and that's certainly not representative of other markets. At Amazon, AMD has the top 6 sales spots with Intel in the next 3, and while that's part of the big American market, it's certainly not all of it.

 

[adisoftcafe]

I don't think that they want to compete. To me it looks like: we're not competing in console market, you don't bother us in gaming pc marhet.

 

[nnguy2]

The monthly shifts are mostly likely due to sampling margin of errors. Unless Steam releases their sampling methodolgy and you can't make any inference for this.

 

[fadingfool]

There are 1.8 Billion PC gamers worldwide. Let that sink in for a minute. Assuming the steam survey is representative - with only 0.34% owning a 7900 XTX that still equals 6.12 million units. 1.94% linux = 34.9 million gamers using linux. Yes comparatively these are nothing compared with nVidia and Windows but the actual numbers are large enough to be markets in their own right.
FYI - recently changed from a GTX 1080Ti to a 7800 XT - haven't had any more driver issues than I had previously experienced with nVidia and the card runs silently compared with the GTX.

 

[Gezzer]

Here's the thing, the Steam survey is a snapshot in time. It in no way shows the totality of what users have in their system/s because it's highly dependent on who's playing a game when they enable it.

For example I have two main gaming systems, my latest a R7 5800X3D with a RTX 4070 using a 2k 170hz monitor. And a much older i5 10600KF with a RTX 3080ti using 3 1900x1200 60hz monitors in Nvidia surround. I only use the second system for games that support surround well, like Witcher 3 or CP2077.

So depending on which system I'm using Steam gets a totally different result from me. Now consider how many people currently use Steam, 120 million. How many of those people do you think are actually on the platform when they enable the survey? Impossible to say. More importantly since it's an international platform how does the time frame they take the snap shot in effect results?

Most people work the standard 9-5 job, and game in the evening. So that has to have a bearing. Also what game is currently being played by the majority of users when they enable the survey? Palworld for example will draw a totally different user base than Spiderman Remastered or Starfield.

So it's an interesting piece of data, but no more telling than any other snapshot based survey. More importantly it's only really useful for those that really need the data, developers. It gives them an idea what minimum system they should be aiming for when finalizing a game. Beyond that I don't really get my sh*t all twisted up over what it shows, because I already have a good idea what's up.

AMD will always trail Intel, and any gains/losses shown are heavily dependent on the releases/pricing 3-6 months before Steam takes the snapshot. As well AMD will always trail Nvidia because AMD's GPU offering are never quite as polished both hardware and software wise, but again the prior timeframe has a lot of bearing on the results.

In the end like benchmarking, what's more important are the trends over a larger period like 2-3 years, not what a current snapshot shows. The survey is a perfect example of too much data obscuring any meaningful conclusions.

 

[Cooe14]

Steam survey seems to be on a bimonthly schedule where every month it flips to an alternate data source.
The Chinese flip, the Windows 11 drop and the Intel rise are all regular features now that will likely change again next month.

Either way, AMD RDNA3 is a totally ****ed generation. Its fans are loud and proud in every comment section but really just represent a vanishing minority. And it's not that surprising given the feature disparity.

Then why do the RX 7900 XTX & RX 7800 XT continue to CONSISTENTLY outsell their Nvidia direct competition at DIY retailers like Mindfactory?

RDNA 3 has been a disaster IN LAPTOPS (which is nothing new for AMD, tbf) which is what primarily shifts rough overall marketshare figures like the Steam Hardware Survey (market ignorant id!ots like yourself don't understand that gaming laptops outnumber desktops about 10:1), NOT DIY desktop where it's been quite successful! Again, go look at direct quotes or sales data from DIY PC part retailers like Mindfactory or Micro Center. RDNA 3 graphics cards sell JUST FINE to PC gamers building/buying ala-carte.

AMD makes PLENTY enough money in the DIY desktop GPU market to justify continued development of GPU technology even IF they didn't have the consoles to fall back on!

 

[Beerfloat]

Then why do the RX 7900 XTX & RX 7800 XT continue to CONSISTENTLY outsell their Nvidia direct competition at DIY retailers like Mindfactory?

One could argue about the accuracy of the Steam survey, like so many do. Every single time.
Even though it's a move driven by desperation there are certainly valid questions.
But let's not pretend that anecdotal information from one retailer in one country is a meaningful argument in any way.

AMD makes PLENTY enough money in the DIY desktop GPU market to justify continued development of GPU technology even IF they didn't have the consoles to fall back on!

Did I mention loud and proud? You sure provide an amusing example.
By all means keep testifying about how all is swell in RDNA land. That'll help.

 

[HardReset]

One could argue about the accuracy of the Steam survey, like so many do. Every single time.
Even though it's a move driven by desperation there are certainly valid questions.
But let's not pretend that anecdotal information from one retailer in one country is a meaningful argument in any way.

Mindfactory sales figures are Actual sale figures of all Mindfactory sales (assuming they are indeed correct).

Steam Survey however is not representing basically anything. Voluntary survey that don't even disclose how many systems are reported multiple times and not actually saying how large percentage of Steam users participate on it.

 

[Disiw]

LOL all that fanboy whinging and blathering when the key statement is the one above.

The Steam Survey cannot be taken seriously because it's opt-in and many months the data changes drastically because those surveyed change drastically. It's not random, not even close. It's a marketing release to advertise Steam, that's all.

Only the most ignorant use the Steam Survey to make any sort of argument to support a point.

And you think Nvidia and Intel owners opt-in more than AMD users?

Stop living in denial and accept reality. Nvidia absolutely crushes AMD in terms of GPU sales. That is clear as day.

Nvidia crushes AMD in all GPU markets; Gaming, Enterpise and AI.

This is nothing new.

If AMD GPUs were any good, they would not be cheaper than Nvidia across the board. Logic 101.

AMDs features are lacking big time. FSR is mediocre at best. Poor RT performance. Higher watt usage.

Also AMD GPU performance is wonky and poor in early access games and emulators. Which tons of people play and use.

I use AMD CPU but AMD GPU? No thanks. AMD is a CPU company first and foremost and they have no chance of beating Nvidia in the GPU space. Especially not now, with AI billions dripping. AMD has lost the high-end GPU space completely.

RDNA4 will probably only compete with 5060 series. AMD will have no answer for 5070 and up before 2026+ and then RTX 6000 series comes out. Nvidia dominates gaming GPUs without breaking a sweat, they have full focus on AI.

 

[Disiw]

Then why do the RX 7900 XTX & RX 7800 XT continue to CONSISTENTLY outsell their Nvidia direct competition at DIY retailers like Mindfactory?

RDNA 3 has been a disaster IN LAPTOPS (which is nothing new for AMD, tbf) which is what primarily shifts rough overall marketshare figures like the Steam Hardware Survey (market ignorant id!ots like yourself don't understand that gaming laptops outnumber desktops about 10:1), NOT DIY desktop where it's been quite successful! Again, go look at direct quotes or sales data from DIY PC part retailers like Mindfactory or Micro Center. RDNA 3 graphics cards sell JUST FINE to PC gamers building/buying ala-carte.

AMD makes PLENTY enough money in the DIY desktop GPU market to justify continued development of GPU technology even IF they didn't have the consoles to fall back on!

Fall back on consoles? AMD makes little money off PS and Xbox. Peanuts really. Sony and MS are the true winners.

If AMD was actually selling well in the high-end segment, why are they leaving high-end segment with RDNA4? I can tell you, because they don't - Nvidia absolutely crushes AMD in the higher end segment.

I always giggle when AMD fanboys deny Steam HW Survey numbers, then mentions Mindfactory

AMD should invest hard in GPUs if they want to be able to compete, but they won't, since they are a CPU company first and foremost. GPUs are an afterthought and their R&D budget is low compared to Nvidia. This is also the reason why AMD features are poorly made.

AMD is cheaper for a reason. Its as simple as that.

 

[Lew Zealand]

You seem to be unaware that a company doesn't need to "beat" another to remain successful, profitable, and relevant. That "Apple" company's been doing it for years. And it seems AMD does as well, even Intel hasn't given up on the dGPU market though being a distant third.

Fanboy attempts at analysis are as usual transparently useless but go ahead if they make you feel better about your purchases dude.