AMD hits record CPU share as new top GPU and OS emerge on Steam survey

[midian182]

In brief: Valve has just posted the results of March's Steam survey, and, as predicted, things have returned to normal after the weirdness we saw during the previous month. This means there's a new top GPU, operating system, and language, while AMD's CPU share has reached a record high.

February was one of those months where the Steam survey changed drastically. One of the biggest changes was a new most-popular graphics card, as the RTX 4060 replaced the RTX 3060.

These sorts of anomalies can occur for several reasons, including sampling bias, reporting bugs, and hardware driver updates. There's also the problem of shared machines at internet cafes in China inflating hardware specs.

But the issue is often down to Valve's algorithms and data processing methods, which can directly impact the survey results, especially when they make back-end changes or adjust how they categorize, interpret, or weight the incoming data.

But, as we saw after the last survey shake-up in October 2023, the status quo has now been restored. That includes the RTX 3060 taking back its crown from the RTX 4060, though the Ampere card is only 0.34% ahead of its Lovelace successor in terms of user share.

Most popular GPUs among Steam survey participants in March 2025

March also saw AMD get back to business in the CPU section. Team Red hit a record 36.19% user share in January before falling 5% as Intel rose by the same amount a month later. In March, AMD reached a new record high of 37.62%, up 6.5%, with Intel dropping by the same margin to 62.3%.

Windows 10 also saw an unlikely resurgence in February, retaking the top spot with a 10% rise in user share. The older OS is now down to 40% and Windows 11 is found on 55% of participants' machines.

This is a trend we're seeing globally as Windows 10's October 2025 end-of-support date draws closer. Statcounter reports that while the OS remains the most popular on desktops, its share has declined since the start of the year as Windows 11 climbs rapidly. There is now just 10 percent points separating the two operating systems.

Returning to the Steam survey, 16GB has replaced 32GB as the most common amount of system RAM among participants, and English took over from Chinese as the most popular language.

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AMD hits record CPU share as new top GPU and OS emerge on Steam survey

 

[yRaz]

People are talking about the "race to 5%" being a big mile stone for Linux. It'll be interesting to look at the results after the release of steamOS and after EOL for Windows 10.

FYI, people are referring to 5% as the amount of marketshare that Linux needs to create the snowball effect for "the year of the Linux desktop".

I think we're still atleast 5 years away from the Linux Desktop if it comes at all. I'm still excited to see what happens at 5%, though

 

[Coisa]

People are talking about the "race to 5%" being a big mile stone for Linux.

 

[Coisa]

We can only wish that Microsoft would have (market share threatening) competition. Linux has been predicted (hoped) to be the next big thing like Professional Soccer has. Yeah ProSoc has grown but it has been predicted to be TNBT since I was in high school in the 1960s. It ain't going to happen (yet). MS only real competition is tablets except in gaming

 

[Kirby1]

When Intel locked down ram speeds and artificially limited higher speeds to more expensive chipsets they showed people who are actually paying attention thst they needed an alternative ASAP, and when AMD came out with Ryzen there were ton of people anxious to switch just to get away from Intel.

Tech enthusiasts don't forget these kinds of things. Intel will have an extremely hard time recovering because not only do consumers tends to see Intel as greedy, but their product are not good anymore either. They having nothing to be excited about.

 

[Kirby1]

People are talking about the "race to 5%" being a big mile stone for Linux. It'll be interesting to look at the results after the release of steamOS and after EOL for Windows 10.

FYI, people are referring to 5% as the amount of marketshare that Linux needs to create the snowball effect for "the year of the Linux desktop".

I think we're still atleast 5 years away from the Linux Desktop if it comes at all. I'm still excited to see what happens at 5%, though

Why are you talking about Linux here? It's not even close to 5%. It's less than 3%. About where it's always been.

Linux will never take off as a consumer OS, not in any foreseeable future.

 

[yRaz]

When Intel locked down ram speeds and artificially limited higher speeds to more expensive chipsets they showed people who are actually paying attention thst they needed an alternative ASAP, and when AMD came out with Ryzen there were ton of people anxious to switch just to get away from Intel.

Tech enthusiasts don't forget these kinds of things. Intel will have an extremely hard time recovering because not only do consumers tends to see Intel as greedy, but their product are not good anymore either. They having nothing to be excited about.

lets not forget about the fact that even though intel has had a major dip in performance, they have been stubborn about pricing. Intel is still great if fast memory is all you need, but that's the only reason to go with it. Intel doesn't just need a CPU price drop, they're motherboards need a price drop, too. Now that the Intel Oxidation issue is over(as far as we know), we can go back to "there isn't a bad product, just a bad price". Unfortunately, Intel is still doing fine in the mobile space and that's always been their bread and butter outside of the mobile space.

Why are you talking about Linux here? It's not even close to 5%. It's less than 3%. About where it's always been.

Linux will never take off as a consumer OS, not in any foreseeable future.

Because Linux has rose 0.88% in the last ~6 months, the last survey was taken in Nov IIRC. That's huge. Also, that's almost the difference between the decrease in W10 and the increase in W11. To extrapolate on that further, that would imply that a not statistically insignificant amount of people switching from Windows 10 are switching to Linux instead of Windows 11.

Linux is no longer a Pipe dream and we could see 5% happen by October. That is, in my opinion, far more interesting than the obvious idea that AMD is selling more CPUs than intel between the price and performance issues. For some reason, Intel still thinks their CPUS are worth more than AMD's while simultaneously being slower.

 

[DanteSmith]

This survey is demonstrably flawed.

 

[EvilRebar]

People are talking about the "race to 5%" being a big mile stone for Linux. It'll be interesting to look at the results after the release of steamOS and after EOL for Windows 10.

FYI, people are referring to 5% as the amount of marketshare that Linux needs to create the snowball effect for "the year of the Linux desktop".

I think we're still atleast 5 years away from the Linux Desktop if it comes at all. I'm still excited to see what happens at 5%, though

I've been hearing about the Year of Linux on the Desktop for over two decades now, but it's still a solution in search of a problem for most users. The cost of a PC OS license is minimal, and people want an OS that just works with everything.

Most people treat their desktop OS like their choice of toaster, not some sort of greater cause. Sadly, a vocal minority doesn't get that "fighting M$" is pointless when there are real existential problems in the world. It's the ultimate luxury and expression of privilege.

Penny Arcade covered this a generation ago:
https://www.penny-arcade.com/comic/2002/07/22/m

 

[Theinsanegamer]

This survey is demonstrably flawed.

People cry about this in every article but never post any alternative source of information.

 

[yRaz]

I've been hearing about the Year of Linux on the Desktop for over two decades now, but it's still a solution in search of a problem for most users. The cost of a PC OS license is minimal, and people want an OS that just works with everything.

Most people treat their desktop OS like their choice of toaster, not some sort of greater cause. Sadly, a vocal minority doesn't get that "fighting M$" is pointless when there are real existential problems in the world. It's the ultimate luxury and expression of privilege.

Penny Arcade covered this a generation ago:
https://www.penny-arcade.com/comic/2002/07/22/m

I think what people don't understand has changed is that 1) billions has been poured into linux desktop development since then. 2) M$ is really pissing people off and providing a horrible user experience.

It's not about "sticking it to the man," It's now "I just want to use my computer." Windows now lacks cohesion and isn't userfriendly at all because they keep changing things. If you're a new user and you learned where an icon is, well next update they can change where that is. What windows had going for it for a long time was that it was user friendly, especially to the computer illiterate. That simply isn't true anymore. Windows was so popular for so many years because it was compatible with everything and everyone knew how to use it. Now that compatibility is about to be a major issue and that they've ditched being user friendly for data collection, many people have significant incentives to move on.

"If it ain't broke don't fix it" doesn't apply to windows anymore. It is broken and they are refusing to fix it so now people are looking for alternatives. To further press the issue, Linux doesn't need a 90% market share to become relevant. Arguably, it already is. However, the snowball will start at around 5% market share and it really needs to get to about 20% for developers to start actually taking it seriously.

It's been at <1% for years on steam survey, but it's up about 1.5% over the last year. That's huge, even if it doesn't seem like it.

 

[Kirby1]

I think what people don't understand has changed is that 1) billions has been poured into linux desktop development since then. 2) M$ is really pissing people off and providing a horrible user experience.

It's not about "sticking it to the man," It's now "I just want to use my computer." Windows now lacks cohesion and isn't userfriendly at all because they keep changing things. If you're a new user and you learned where an icon is, well next update they can change where that is. What windows had going for it for a long time was that it was user friendly, especially to the computer illiterate. That simply isn't true anymore. Windows was so popular for so many years because it was compatible with everything and everyone knew how to use it. Now that compatibility is about to be a major issue and that they've ditched being user friendly for data collection, many people have significant incentives to move on.

"If it ain't broke don't fix it" doesn't apply to windows anymore. It is broken and they are refusing to fix it so now people are looking for alternatives. To further press the issue, Linux doesn't need a 90% market share to become relevant. Arguably, it already is. However, the snowball will start at around 5% market share and it really needs to get to about 20% for developers to start actually taking it seriously.

It's been at <1% for years on steam survey, but it's up about 1.5% over the last year. That's huge, even if it doesn't seem like it.

The fact that it went up by ~1.5% on a platform that literally sells a Linux OS device shouldn't not be surprising.

Linux has gone up and down on steam charts before. This is nothing special.

 

[yRaz]

The fact that it went up by ~1.5% on a platform that literally sells a Linux OS device shouldn't not be surprising.

Linux has gone up and down on steam charts before. This is nothing special.

yes, but the steam deck is over 3 years old at this point. I will point out again what I find interesting, Windows lost market share over all. The amount of W11 marketshare gained is not equal to the W10 marketshare lost. Overall, Windows lost ~1.5% marketshare and Linux gained ~0.9%. Another way of looking at this is that Linux marketshare almost doubled.

We can also look at the AMD radeon graphics increase in share, which is 0.73% gain. best case scenario, 100% of that is from steam decks, which we know is impossible. I'm over simplifying here, but that would mean that .15% of that .88% were gains that had nothing to do with the steam deck or hand held hardware.

 

[Lew Zealand]

Half the people speaking Chinese last month just stopped and switched to English and every other language.

Culture wars are crazy these days.

 

[Kirby1]

yes, but the steam deck is over 3 years old at this point. I will point out again what I find interesting, Windows lost market share over all. The amount of W11 marketshare gained is not equal to the W10 marketshare lost. Overall, Windows lost ~1.5% marketshare and Linux gained ~0.9%. Another way of looking at this is that Linux marketshare almost doubled.

We can also look at the AMD radeon graphics increase in share, which is 0.73% gain. best case scenario, 100% of that is from steam decks, which we know is impossible. I'm over simplifying here, but that would mean that .15% of that .88% were gains that had nothing to do with the steam deck or hand held hardware.

It may be the case that people with older non-11 compatible PCs are giving Linux a try, but that's not going to last. If it started to have a real impact, Microsoft could just drop the TPM requirement.

On top of that, older PCs switching to Linux is not going to be a driving force for devs at all.

 

[nnguy2]

Lol considering the RTX 3060 was discontinued for almost 10 months now... this shows how flawed this survey

 

[Lew Zealand]

Lol considering the RTX 3060 was discontinued for almost 10 months now... this shows how flawed this survey

I bought a new one recently, there are still a number of them in the channel.

 

[yRaz]

I bought a new one recently, there are still a number of them in the channel.

people seem to forget that there is a market for new-old stock. It's why nVidia cut production of the 40 series when they did. They made a bunch of 30 series cards that are still floating around new, would hate to have that happen with the 40 and 50 series and not squeeze out all the margin. There are also a bunch of Mining cards that have had their chips put on a new PCB that has display outputs and are sold on aliexpress for pennies.

 

[Kirby1]

people seem to forget that there is a market for new-old stock. It's why nVidia cut production of the 40 series when they did. They made a bunch of 30 series cards that are still floating around new, would hate to have that happen with the 40 and 50 series and not squeeze out all the margin. There are also a bunch of Mining cards that have had their chips put on a new PCB that has display outputs and are sold on aliexpress for pennies.

GPUs market is way different than the CPU market at this point. There's plenty of dirt cheap CPUs that support TPM, and the ones that don't tend to be a lot slower. Nothing like that is true for GPUs, and GPUs donr dictate what OS the system can run.

 

[Lew Zealand]

people seem to forget that there is a market for new-old stock. It's why nVidia cut production of the 40 series when they did. They made a bunch of 30 series cards that are still floating around new, would hate to have that happen with the 40 and 50 series and not squeeze out all the margin. There are also a bunch of Mining cards that have had their chips put on a new PCB that has display outputs and are sold on aliexpress for pennies.

uhm. Well you see.....

I got one of those too about a year ago, except it has a new-looking PCB with the full suite of normal outputs but there's no way the GPU core (it's a 2060 Super) isn't used and the VRAM chips are very clearly heavily used as they're slightly yellowed. Mining 100%. However it works great and I got it for $130 so I can't complain. I'd buy it again but you can't even get used ones for that price any more. If I buy Nvidia it's old or used, never full price.

 

[yRaz]

and GPUs donr dictate what OS the system can run.

so while that's technically true, none of nVidias fancy features work on Linux, but AMD's do. So if you want modern features and drivers that work(and for some reason, want to run Linux), you basically have to do go with an AMD or Intel GPU. There are janky work arounds, but nVidia on Linux is a pretty miserable experience. Considering that Intel can provide a jank-free linux experience, nVidia doesn't have an excuse. Granted, Vulkan support for intel stopped working for about a year on ARC GPUs, but they fixed it about a month prior to Battlemage

uhm. Well you see.....

I got one of those too about a year ago, except it has a new-looking PCB with the full suite of normal outputs but there's no way the GPU core (it's a 2060 Super) isn't used and the VRAM chips are very clearly heavily used as they're slightly yellowed. Mining 100%. However it works great and I got it for $130 so I can't complain. I'd buy it again but you can't even get used ones for that price any more. If I buy Nvidia it's old or used, never full price.

3060's are pushing $400 now and I'd rather just get an RX7600 at that point for $100 less. I honestly think that the 7600, even though it only has 8GB, is the "budget" king right now. You can find them all over the place for $280-300. Considering that you aren't going to be doing much ray tracing on a 7600 I don't see the 8GB as too egregious in the current market. They're a fine card to pull you out of a pinch and tide you over until the shortage has passed us.

 

[Lew Zealand]

so while that's technically true, none of nVidias fancy features work on Linux, but AMD's do. So if you want modern features and drivers that work(and for some reason, want to run Linux), you basically have to do go with an AMD or Intel GPU. There are janky work arounds, but nVidia on Linux is a pretty miserable experience. Considering that Intel can provide a jank-free linux experience, nVidia doesn't have an excuse. Granted, Vulkan support for intel stopped working for about a year on ARC GPUs, but they fixed it about a month prior to Battlemage

3060's are pushing $400 now and I'd rather just get an RX7600 at that point for $100 less. I honestly think that the 7600, even though it only has 8GB, is the "budget" king right now. You can find them all over the place for $280-300. Considering that you aren't going to be doing much ray tracing on a 7600 I don't see the 8GB as too egregious in the current market. They're a fine card to pull you out of a pinch and tide you over until the shortage has passed us.

My 6600 XT (not far removed from the 7600) is my favorite GPU. Well, maybe after the $115 5600 XT I got off eBay ~2 yrs ago. The only reason I don't have the 7600 is the 6600 XT is just too close to it. But the moment I find a good price on the 7600 XT I'll snap it up for the 16 GB, probably a couple years from now though.

And I have many more, all inexpensive. It's a problem. I don't care. There are worse problems to have out there.

 

[yRaz]

My 6600 XT (not far removed from the 7600) is my favorite GPU. Well, maybe after the $115 5600 XT I got off eBay 2 yrs ago. The only reason I don't have the 7600 is the 6600 XT is just too close to it. But the moment I find a good price on the 7600 XT I'll snap it up for the 16 GB, probably a couple years from now though.

And I have many more, all inexpensive. It's a problem. I don't care. There are worse problems to have out there.

I have a similar problem with buying used server hardware on eBay.

 

[Kirby1]

so while that's technically true, none of nVidias fancy features work on Linux, but AMD's do. So if you want modern features and drivers that work(and for some reason, want to run Linux), you basically have to do go with an AMD or Intel GPU. There are janky work arounds, but nVidia on Linux is a pretty miserable experience. Considering that Intel can provide a jank-free linux experience, nVidia doesn't have an excuse. Granted, Vulkan support for intel stopped working for about a year on ARC GPUs, but they fixed it about a month prior to Battlemage

Just more reasons why Linux will never be a widely used consumer OS.

 

[yRaz]

Just more reasons why Linux will never be a widely used consumer OS.

I don't know if you are aware of this, but Linux is the most used consumer OS, just not desktop OS. But if People can't buy nVidia GPUS then it's kind of irrelevant whether or not they work on Linux, isn't it?