Latest Steam survey: RDNA 4 enters GPU chart, Intel CPUs make rare gains

[midian182]

What just happened? Some people thought the latest Steam survey would be the one where AMD finally overtook Intel in the CPU section. But January turned out to be the first time since August 2025 that Team Blue gained processor share while AMD's declined. Valve also revealed that last month's best-performing GPU was the RTX 5060, and the first RDNA 4 card has entered the chart.

AMD hit a record CPU share in the Steam hardware and software survey in December. The 43.53% (a figure that had been higher before Valve corrected it) of participants with Team Red processors in their devices meant AMD was closer than ever to passing the 50% milestone and overtaking Intel.

But January proved to be only the fourth time in twelve months that AMD's CPU share fell while Intel's increased. The good news for Lisa Su is that the fall was only small – down just 0.19%. That leaves AMD on 43.34% and Intel on 56.64%.

Assuming this is just a one-off involving small figures, which it likely is, AMD is still expected to take the CPU lead in the Steam survey at some point this year. Its processors hold 17 of the top 20 best-selling CPUs on Amazon.com – Intel's highest entry is the 12600K at 16 – and it's a similar story across international markets.

Elsewhere on the survey, the long-running trend of the RTX 3060, RTX 4060, and RTX 4060 Laptop constantly swapping places at the top of the GPU section continued. December saw the RTX 3060 take the top spot; January was the RTX 4060's turn.

Most popular GPUs among Steam survey participants during January

More interesting is the month's best-performing GPUs. The RTX 5060 dominated in January with a 0.72% increase. The Blackwell mid-range entry is now eighth most-popular on the main chart, though another card from Nvidia's newest series, the RTX 5070, which sits in fifth place, is more popular.

January also marked the arrival of AMD's Radeon RX 9070 in the GPU section. The card was released back in March 2025 and is the only RDNA 4 card in the main chart.

Overall, 73% of GPUs in the survey are from Nvidia, 18% are from AMD, and almost 8% are from Intel (including integrated graphics).

Best-performing GPUs among Steam survey participants during January

Elsewhere on the chart, Windows 10's user share increased more than Windows 11's in January. Passing its end-of-support date last year hasn't stopped 27% of participants holding on to the older OS. And despite Valve ending support for Windows 7, 0.08% of people still use the 2009 release.

The Steam survey also shows that some people can still afford RAM. 32GB was the only amount to increase among participants in January. 16GB remains most popular, but only by 2%, so 32GB will likely take the top spot soon.

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Latest Steam survey: RDNA 4 enters GPU chart, Intel CPUs make rare gains

 

[Rapob]

Many skimp on RAM now, so 16GB might stay on top For me tho, 32GB is sweet spot and 24GB bare minimum

Good to see RDNA 4 gaining, personally, the only RDNA version I would bother buying and using. And I did, Radeon 9070 in the HTPC and RTX 4090 in the main rig.

A GPU without (good) upscaling support is near useless in newer games these days, and FSR 3.1 and older is just too bad IMO.

DLSS 4 (has been good since version 2, released 6 years ago) and FSR 4 for me only. AMD needs to work on game support tho. DLSS have massive support in comparison.

I use DLAA when I have perf overhead and DLSS when I prefer more fps. Same on the HTPC really. FSR Native 1st, FSR 4 2nd, FSR 3.1 NEVER.

 

[Beerfloat]

It only took 11 months for the 9070 to even appear on the GPU market share chart.
Contrast that with all the activist reviewers and forum astroturfers claiming they were super excited about it everywhere they could. Let that sink in for a second.

 

[Rapob]

It only took 11 months for the 9070 to even appear on the GPU market share chart.
Contrast that with all the activist reviewers and forum astroturfers claiming they were super excited about it everywhere they could. Let that sink in for a second.

Most praising AMD GPUs, don't have money to buy RDNA4. Yapping online won't ship many GPUs.

The reviewers talking about how good Radeon 9070 XT was, went straight back to their high-end Nvidia GPU right after.

We still need AMD in the market for competition but in reality, Intel is a bigger threat to AMDs GPU marketshare than Nvidia.

Nvidia mostly chases mid-end and up. They barely does low-end (except for OEM, which loves Nvidia, as customers rather wants Nvidia, regardless of how crappy the spec sheet is)

AMD and Intel both focus on low-end to lower mid-end mostly. Intel Arc is getting better and better.

While 9070 XT is a mid-end card, maybe even upper mid-end, 5070 Ti massively outsold it and in most places they cost almost the same. Unless 9070 XT is at least 25% cheaper, why choose it? Worse raster perf. Worse features (upscaling, frame gen, rt and path tracing). Less stable performance across many games. Most PC games just run better on Nvidia, especially lesser popular titles, early access, Betas, etc. Most developers use Nvidia themselves.

I bought 9070 NON-XT for my HTPC, because the alternative was 5070 and price was similar. A fine GPU for the money, finally with decent upscaling support but I would not choose AMD in my main rig. My 4 year old RTX 4090 still destroys a 9070 XT overall.

I hope to see AMD enter high-end again with RDNA 5 / UDNA, this time with proper upscaling support in terms of FSR 4 or better. Then I might buy AMD again.

RDNA 1, 2 and 3 felt like half assed solutions. Which is why they don't support FSR 4. It was a work in progress, leading up to RDNA 4 and eventually UDNA.

I would not touch anything else than RDNA 4 on the AMD side right now.

Nvidia has been using unified arch since RTX 2000 / 2018, 8 years ago. Hence why even RTX 2000 support DLSS 4. Good upscaling support is crucial for longevity, so I am glad AMD delivered with FSR 4, sadly for RDNA 3 and older users, they will never get it.

 

[Theinsanegamer]

It only took 11 months for the 9070 to even appear on the GPU market share chart.
Contrast that with all the activist reviewers and forum astroturfers claiming they were super excited about it everywhere they could. Let that sink in for a second.

nVidia shils can hardly contain their excitement!

 

[Rapob]

Funny how all anti Nvidia guys are using dated AMD GPUs, not even these guys buys new AMD GPUs, and they wonder why Nvidia sits at 90%+ marketshare

 

[nnguy2]

The fact that W10 goes up and down over the last few surveys suggests there are no weighing adjustments.

 

[Melkor Unlimited]

It only took 11 months for the 9070 to even appear on the GPU market share chart.

It took only 11 months to fix the bug that did not allowed them to show.

DLSS 4 (has been good since version 2, released 6 years ago) and FSR 4 for me only. AMD needs to work on game support tho. DLSS have massive support in comparison.

In other words ... it took nVidia 14 months to put together something working.
Now count yourself the time between release of RDNA4 and ML upscaling.

We still need AMD in the market for competition but in reality, Intel is a bigger threat to AMDs GPU marketshare than Nvidia.

Where are those discrete GPU made by Intel?

While 9070 XT is a mid-end card, maybe even upper mid-end, 5070 Ti massively outsold it and in most places they cost almost the same. Unless 9070 XT is at least 25% cheaper, why choose it?

You should crawl out from tha hole under the rock where you have hidding last years.
1199 € - Gigabyte RTX 5070Ti Gaming OC 16G
774 € - Gigabyte RX 9070 XT Gaming OC 16G

+55% for Green Logo

Nvidia has been using unified arch since RTX 2000 / 2018, 8 years ago. Hence why even RTX 2000 support DLSS 4.

RTX 20xx and RTX30xx support some features of DLSS 4/4.5
RR - at 4.0 as there is no 4.5 yet
SR - at 4.0, where 4.5 has big impact on performance
FG - no support
MFG - no support
Adaptive MFG - no support
MFG + AMFG does now work on rtx 40xx too.

BTW ... by using 3rd party SW you can get MFG working on Radeon 7800x

My 4 year old RTX 4090 still destroys a 9070 XT overall.

As it does for not only for rtx 5070Ti but rtx 5080 too.

 

[OortCloud]

The AMD 90 series failure in stark numbers. It's really annoying as it's a good product but they seem determined for it to fail despite the huge open goal Nvidia presented them with. It needs a price-drop but in the current AI dominated landscape that's not happening. As per usual AMD remain in price-fixed lockstep with NVidia and are planning price rises at exactly the same time. Another generation of AMD GPU destined for obscurity while they try to jump on the AI bandwagon long after it left town.

 

[EvilRebar]

It only took 11 months for the 9070 to even appear on the GPU market share chart.
Contrast that with all the activist reviewers and forum astroturfers claiming they were super excited about it everywhere they could. Let that sink in for a second.

Yeah, that stands out for me as well. Remember people breathlessly following every sales update from a German retail store and declaring that no one can sell 5xxx GPUs?

 

[EvilRebar]

It took only 11 months to fix the bug that did not allowed them to show.

It's still below 0.2%. You think you're making a point, but you're not. RDNA4 is a market failure. Which is going to be reflected in developer uptake of RDNA4-exclusive features. Nvidia is always the safer bet.

 

[Melkor Unlimited]

It's still below 0.2%. You think you're making a point, but you're not. RDNA4 is a market failure. Which is going to be reflected in developer uptake of RDNA4-exclusive features. Nvidia is always the safer bet.

Sure.
And a lot of 4060, 4060ti an 4060 mobile were sold since last survey.

 

[RaXelliX]

It only took 11 months for the 9070 to even appear on the GPU market share chart.

Main chart yes. In the DX12 chart all 9070 variants (there are three) are present since months and months ago.

Most praising AMD GPUs, don't have money to buy RDNA4. Yapping online won't ship many GPUs.

They dont have the money for Nvidia GPU's either considering how 5+ year old architectures still rule the TOP10 chart.

Intel is a bigger threat to AMDs GPU marketshare than Nvidia.

Since when? They cant even release competitors to RDNA4 at the same performance tier and their existing releases are always horribly late. Their market share is still abysmal.
The only threat they pose exists in iGPU's and that's only because AMD is taking it easy for some reason.

While 9070 XT is a mid-end card, maybe even upper mid-end, 5070 Ti massively outsold it and in most places they cost almost the same.

I dont know when +150 is considered almost the same. That is always been the gap between the two in EU region. It's even bigger now.

Unless 9070 XT is at least 25% cheaper, why choose it? Worse raster perf. Worse features (upscaling, frame gen, rt and path tracing). Less stable performance across many games. Most PC games just run better on Nvidia, especially lesser popular titles, early access, Betas, etc. Most developers use Nvidia themselves.

XT is less than half the price at the moment. Raster perf is within +/- 5% so entirely unnoticeable. Upscaling is good enough for most people , the problem is game support. FG needs work and RT perf is only slightly worse than Ti. PT perf is utterly meaningless anyway as even a 5090 struggles with it. Not sure what this "Less stable performance across many games" even means. RDNA4 drivers have been rock solid next to the abomination that was 50 series where they needed half a year to fix basic issues. It was even worse in laptops where several models were rendered nigh unusable because of 50 series issues.

My 4 year old RTX 4090 still destroys a 9070 XT overall.

That is the state oi the industry. In four years there has been so little progress than a four year old flagship still beats all but it's direct successor. Well doh. Of course a four year flagship beats a new mid-end card. Did anyone really think that a 64CU card would suddenly beat a 4090? Not to mention the fact that 4090 cost 1600+. 2000 in most cases. It bloody well should beat a 599 card.

I hope to see AMD enter high-end again with RDNA 5 / UDNA, this time with proper upscaling support in terms of FSR 4 or better. Then I might buy AMD again.

That's what everyone say's, but they never follow trough on that and still buy Nvidia.

RDNA 1, 2 and 3 felt like half assed solutions. Which is why they don't support FSR 4. It was a work in progress, leading up to RDNA 4 and eventually UDNA.

RDNA1 was buggy tho this is not unheard of for a new architecture start. RDNA2 was very solid for it's intended use case. RDNA3 disappointed because AMD themselves set the expectations too high. It wasn't a bad series, just underwhelming compared to RDNA2.

I bought 9070 XT back in May of 2025 after being on Nvidia for 9 years (2016-2025, GTX 1080 and RTX 2080 Ti). The switch has been pretty seamless. I've not had major problems. Only one old obscure game runs below expectations on RDNA4 (compared to Turing). Everything else performs as it should.

Several aspects have actually improved. My PC boots faster with the AMD card. Unsure why. Also there is no longer a weird performance drop when I use HDMI to send video to my TV that existed with Nvidia.

AMD's control panel is way better compared to what Nvidia was offering etc. No regrets thus far. I paid 750€ for my XT. Back in May the prices were still higher. At the same time 5070 Ti cost over a 1000€ here and it's availability was nonexistent despite having launched before 9070 XT.

Had I gone with 5070 Ti what would I have gained that I dont have now?
Raster and rt perf is very close and I dont even use rt. Upscaling is close enough, but I only use FSR Native AA (DLAA analogue) anyway. I dont use CUDA. That's about it. 5070 Ti would not offer me any benefits aside from maybe slightly better performance in old DX11 games as AMD's DX11 driver is not the best.