Latest Steam survey sees AMD and Windows 11 crash as a new top language appears

[midian182]

In brief: It's the start of a new month, which means Valve has just released the latest Steam Software and Hardware survey results. There were a few surprising stats from last month, including a new most-popular language, a massive jump in users for Intel, and a continuing resurgence by Windows 10.

Starting as we always do with the graphics card category, October saw the RTX 3060 cement its position at the number one spot having stolen the GTX 1650's crown in September. The Ampere GPU was once again the month's top performer, up 3.65%, and is now found in close to 10% of survey participants' machines.

The most-popular GPUs among steam survey participants in October

Following the RTX 3060 on the best-performers list is another Ampere entry, the RTX 3070, which has now moved into third place overall. Sitting in fourth place is the RTX 2060. Having first launched in January 2019, the Turing card increased its user base by 1.38% in October and is now second overall.

The top-performing GPUs among steam survey participants in October

Looking at Lovelace, the RTX 4060 and 4070 had a good month with increases of 1.25% and 1.19%, respectively. The RTX 4080 and 4070 Ti also gained more users. Sadly for AMD, its only RDNA 3 card in the main chart, the RX 7900 XTX, actually lost user share. It sits just 10 places off the very bottom of the main GPU chart with a 0.19% share.

It was even worse news for AMD in the CPU chart. Having spent most of this year closing the large gap on Intel, Team Red processor users fell a massive 5.61% in October, one of the largest drops we've seen in a while. This follows a 2.24% dip in September, leaving AMD with a user share of just over 25%. Intel has only just released its Raptor Lake Refresh chips, too, so don't be surprised to see the gap widen next month.

One of the biggest (but not the biggest) changes last month was in the operating system section. Almost 40% of participants preferred Windows 11 in August's survey, but Microsoft's latest OS fell 1.79% a month later and has now crashed by a massive 6.9%. Windows 10, meanwhile, is up 7.61% for an overall total share of 65%. It seems the Redmond company's quest to get everyone onto Windows 11 needs an extra push.

The biggest change in October, and probably the most surprising, was in the languages section. English has been the most popular language for a long time, but simplified Chinese jumped almost 14% last month to give it an overall lead of almost 46%. Exactly why this happened isn't clear, but one could speculate that more people in China took part in last month's survey.

There have been other times where some of the Steam survey results seemed a little off. March was a prime example, when Chinese became the top language and Windows 11 plummeted. Things returned to normal a month later, so it will be interesting to see if October proves to be another temporary anomaly.

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https://www.techspot.com/news/100704-latest-steam-survey-sees-amd-windows-11-crash.html

 

[redgarl]

Yeah, sure...

 

[fiveminute]

Steam survey is *highly* suspicious. This month the percentage of Chinese speaking users went up by 13.71 percentage points. All of a sudden they added tens of millions of new users and only in China!? That happened a few months ago, with many inexplicable large jumps in various categories, only to be completely reverted a month later.

 

[sorten]

So, a sudden surge of Chinese gamers, despite government restrictions, and they prefer Intel and Windows 10? I think the data is bad.

 

[oasked]

With all the inconsistencies pointed out above, it turns out that this data set isn't all that reliable...

 

[Lew Zealand]

So, a sudden surge of Chinese gamers, despite government restrictions, and they prefer Intel and Windows 10? I think the data is bad.

It's not data, it's an opt-in survey. It's intent is not a random distribution or any kind of representation, just a vaguely general kind of idea with 50-100% swings in any category being the norm.

Makes you wonder if the months where the wild swings are absent are any more representative of reality than the crazy months? Probably not.

 

[lna2000]

How about CCP sponsored hacking?

 

[wiak]

Most of the time the steam survey dialog box never shows up on my system, pretty sure a lot of others have the same issue

 

[Beerfloat]

Mysterious month to month shifts are a valid reason for criticizing the survey's methodology.

One thing remains consistently obvious though: RDNA3 is yet another hugely disappointing generation of AMD GPUs.

 

[HardReset]

It was even worse news for AMD in the CPU chart. Having spent most of this year closing the large gap on Intel, Team Red processor users fell a massive 5.61% in October, one of the largest drops we've seen in a while. This follows a 2.24% dip in September, leaving AMD with a user share of just over 25%. Intel has only just released its Raptor Lake Refresh chips, too, so don't be surprised to see the gap widen next month.

Steam Survey is total trash as usual but IF you write news about it, how about even trying to analyse data and write something not stupid?

Now let's see where that drop came from? Intel CPU share by clock speed:

2.7 Ghz to 2.99 Ghz +5.15%

That wasn't too hard. I doubt Raptor Lake Refresh will have any effect on that category.

 

[HardReset]

One thing remains consistently obvious though: RDNA3 is yet another hugely disappointing generation of AMD GPUs.

AMD Radeon Graphics is doing pretty well. That's RDNA3 stuff.

 

[LimyG]

It's not data, it's an opt-in survey. It's intent is not a random distribution or any kind of representation, just a vaguely general kind of idea with 50-100% swings in any category being the norm.

Makes you wonder if the months where the wild swings are absent are any more representative of reality than the crazy months? Probably not.

Yeah, that's critical to keep in mind, opt in bit.
The surverys are kind of interesting, as long as one doesn't consider them accurate.
Still they kind of give a general idea, but the big swings which happen some months, well, that mostly wrong.
I didn't know Chinese people could access to Steam?? These western games are dangerous for they could lead Chinese adults, "the wrong way."
Perhaps a whole load of youngsters found a great VPN like service, local made which would be necessary to penetrate the great firewall. The Govt fixed all the unpatriotic people using VPNs.
They will probably do the same with this new one (only a guess, with added sarcasm, I have no idea of such a thing.) So by next month they will be comfy and blocked again by their very very caring great leaders. That would drop the number of Chinese players again to regular kind of levels.
Of course this post is sarcastic, I have nothing against Chinese people.
As already said, while these numbers are interesting, they can't be taken a face value.

I fully agree with @ Lew Zealands comment.

I tend to look at the Steam monthly figures like the Horoscope in newspapers etc. Strangley interesting, but not a good guide for how about to go about one's live.

 

[Kam7r]

With all the inconsistencies pointed out above, it turns out that this data set isn't all that reliable...

Steam survey was NEVER reliable in the 1st place

 

[LimyG]

Steam survey was NEVER reliable in the 1st place

That's true. The only way it would reflect some form of reality would be if:
A: Everyone had to agree to a silent scan of their hardware, monthly.
B: Select say 20% of folks from all geo areas. They would have to let them know and some would say wtf, now way!!

A is the only way to get proper info, and then the stats need to reflect play time and other factors.
But that will NEVER happen. That's MS or Google type behaviour, but somehow it feels worse. It's out of the question IMHO.

So that brings us back to how it is now. How it always was, and likely how will always be.
Somewhat interesting for me, but with the understanding that they don't really reflect much.

l guess everyone will have their own opinions, but I deem it harmless, as opt in, just not a serious set of stats,

 

[hahahanoobs]

Yeah, sure...

Fine print:
Primarily driven by higher Ryzen mobile sales.

 

[antiproduct]

Fine print:
Primarily driven by higher Ryzen mobile sales.

Ahh.. yes, I bought over 1000 of them for my work.

 

[bviktor]

Maybe the Great Chinese Firewall accidentally let all this info through this month lol

 

[i like foxes]

What if I use 2 devices to log in to Steam ?! it most likely takes into account only the current one .

 

[Lew Zealand]

What if I use 2 devices to log in to Steam ?! it most likely takes into account only the current one .

Nope, it's arbitrary. I have about 8 machines with Steam installed and within the past month it polled 4 of them but not the primary one used for gaming. And I hadn't seen a survery request since the beginning of the year. Well, the 5600 XT and Intel Xe Integrated graphics got a bit of representation this month.

 

[i like foxes]

Lew Zealand . with the word current I meant the same - what the survey comes upon at the moment .

 

[lripplinger]

I think one should take the Steam survey with a grain of salt. How many users of Steam don't even participate in the hardware survey?

 

[bondflavor]

It's already been covered by previous comments, but... Steam Hardware Survey is accurately representative of exactly one demographic: those who assented to doing the survey. Given the sampling method, conclusions cannot safely or reliably be drawn for any other demographic.

 

[manowar51]

I don't think the stream survey is that inaccurate. The data seems to fit, AMD may well be making good graphics cards (I wouldn't know) but they haven't been selling and we all know that. So, to see their usage decline in the steam survey falls in line with what we know. Personally, I quite like ray tracing and DLSS and I wouldn't buy a product that doesn't do well at those things. I reckon a lot of people feel this way but thats just my 2 cents.

If anyone has a better source out there than the steam survey id love to see it.

 

[Gastec]

What's the sample size for the Steam Hardware & Software Survey and it is statistically, mathematically relevant or is more like the surveys and electoral results in P.R.C. or the Russian Federation, where the "right" presidential candidate always receives 90-99% of the votes

PS: in almost two decades of using Steam I've never willingly participated in Steam's Survey.

 

[LimyG]

What's the sample size for the Steam Hardware & Software Survey and it is statistically, mathematically relevant or is more like the surveys and electoral results in P.R.C. or the Russian Federation, where the "right" presidential candidate always receives 90-99% of the votes

PS: in almost two decades of using Steam I've never willingly participated in Steam's Survey.

Heh Heh, I think you are right there with the Russian Federation and the "right," candidate.

My idea which is totally non factual is that the sample size varies even more than the results of the survey itself. Or at the very least and exceedingly rare months it only varies by as much as the results. Really can't go much lower than that, IMHO