Latest Steam survey shows graphics card deluge, AMD hitting record high, and Windows 11...

[midian182]

TL;DR: It's Steam survey time. Valve's monthly software and hardware report gives us a good indication of what the platform's 120 million active monthly users are packing in their machines. July saw one of the largest jumps for AMD in the processor category, eroding more of Intel's share and reaching a record high. There was also a surprise drop in the number of Windows 11 users, and it seems more people are taking advantage of falling graphics card prices.

Starting in the Steam survey processor section, July was one of the best months for AMD in recent memory. Team red saw a rare decline in the number of participants using its CPUs in June, falling -1.28%, but it rebounded last month by +2.22%. That gives AMD a record-high share of 33.73%. It's not the news Intel wanted to hear, especially after its disastrous quarterly report caused Chipzilla's market cap to fall below its rival's.

Click to expand

Moving onto the best-performing GPUs of the month, we find a lot of mid- to high-end Ampere and RDNA 2 cards at the top of the chart. The RTX 3070 (+0.27%), RTX 3080 (+.024%), and RTX 3080 Ti (+0.14%) did especially well, and it seems AMD's cards are finally getting more love, with the Radeon RX 6800 XT and RX 6500 XT entering the main chart in seventh (+0.19%) and thirteenth (+0.15%) place, respectively.

July's best-performing GPUs among Steam survey participants

The sight of so many graphics cards, especially newer, higher-tier ones, performing well is a welcome one. At the height of the chip crisis in November last year, only five GPUs made gains of over +0.10%. Today, falling prices and former crypto miners selling their equipment means more gamers are buying cards that were once too expensive or simply unavailable.

There was little change among the top GPUs, though almost all of them saw increases

Elsewhere, Windows 11 had its first-ever decline last month. Microsoft's latest OS has been taking share from Windows 10 since it arrived in the survey. That trend reversed in July as Windows 11 dropped by -0.11%, and Windows 10 went up +1.91% to gain a 73.17% share.

Finally, the long-awaited point when the Oculus Quest 2 is owned by over half of all Steam's VR users has come. Meta's headset is the preferred choice for a massive 50.32% of participants; the second-place Valve Index HMD has a share of just over 15%. It'll be interesting to see if the Oculus (officially called Meta) Quest 2 can keep up this pace now that it's $100 more expensive.

Another interesting part of the survey is the languages section. The two most popular—English and Simplified Chinese—both declined last month, while Russian saw the biggest increase (+1.59%). Steam is one of the few western services not banned in Russia, and Valve in April resumed payments to Russian and Ukrainian developers following a suspension.

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https://www.techspot.com/news/95497-july-steam-survey-shows-graphics-card-deluge-amd.html

 

[Irata]

While I‘m happy with AMD‘s CPU numbers they make absolutely no sense in light of Intel doing noticeably better in retail / consumer space after Alder Lake‘s launch.

Still feel these Steam survey stats are worthless.

 

[zaku49]

While I‘m happy with AMD‘s CPU numbers they make absolutely no sense in light of Intel doing noticeably better in retail / consumer space after Alder Lake‘s launch.

Still feel these Steam survey stats are worthless.

Yeah, I'd take them with a grain of salt. As far as Intel goes it might be due to gamers gravitating over to the 5800x3d or due to DDR5 being hard to find and expansive when it came out. I think we're going to see a bigger shift with Zen4.

 

[yRaz]

Yeah, I'd take them with a grain of salt. As far as Intel goes it might be due to gamers gravitating over to the 5800x3d or due to DDR5 being hard to find and expansive when it came out. I think we're going to see a bigger shift with Zen4.

Have to agree, the 5800X3D is one hell of an upgrade for people still running an AM4 platform. And it seems like Intel is overplaying their hand. Full system rebuilds are a pain and the motherboard alone can cost $200-300 or even more. Before the crypto crash it was almost silly to spend that kind of money for a system rebuild with the money better spent on an overpriced graphics card.

With graphics cards dropping in price I think we might see a small spike in intel sales until Zen4 comes out.

 

[kira setsu]

I retired my 980ti and picked up a 6800xt, glad to see my card back in the surveys again.

 

[Puiu]

While I‘m happy with AMD‘s CPU numbers they make absolutely no sense in light of Intel doing noticeably better in retail / consumer space after Alder Lake‘s launch.

Still feel these Steam survey stats are worthless.

AMD gaming laptops have been selling rather well. They're really popular in Romania (and Europe in general).

I'm trying to find an 12700H laptop, but I just can't fit one in my budget which is ~1800euros (there is a reason for this limit). The cheapest I can find in my country, with a good QHD screen and RTX 3070 (ti or non-ti), is around 2100-2200 euros.

On the other hand, 6900HX laptops with similar specs sell for ~1750 euros (and the 12650H, which is closer to the 6900HX pricing and perf is only found in mid range laptops with only FHD screens and RTX 3060, few 3070).

I've been waiting for weeks for a sale to happen for 12700H laptops with no luck. I can't wait for much longer.

Besides the good AMD laptop sales, Ryzen has still been selling really well. AMD still has 8 CPUs in amazon's top 10 best sellers list. and where I live an AMD PC is cheaper than an alder lake PC. ignoring the DDR5 RAM prices, the 12700KF is more expensive than the 5900X

 

[Lew Zealand]

If you look at all the metrics, there's a clear indication that this month's survey excluded a lot of laptops and instead included a lot of desktops compared to last months' as almost all the video cards that lost share were older laptop and integrated graphics, with some non-RT Turing GPUs (used in laptops) as well. Which non-RT Turing GPUs didn't lose market share? The 1650 Super and 1660 Super, which are desktop-only parts.

Also 1366x768 and 1440x900 were the big losers: laptop resolutions. Frankly, Intel CPUs are dominant in laptops as well with that share going down. Biggest VRAM losers are 1 and 2GB for these laptop GPUs and biggest CPU core count losers were 2 cores, also common in laptops.

All these are ~2% reductions pointing to a low-laptop skew in the data gathering. Not sure why laptops took it on the chin this month but yay for noisy Steam results.

 

[dirtyferret]

Still feel these Steam survey stats are worthless.

Helps give people an idea of the gaming community hardware as a whole as opposed to just the niche fanatic sector. I know people toss hissy fits because they don't see "their" brand on top or the hardware is "too old" for their personal definition of gaming, or even their own lack of understanding statistics but those stats represent a whole segment not an individual PC, what parts are currently selling well or what parts you should get.

 

[MaestroIT]

I nearly fell for Windows 11 gaining in Steam charts, I upgraded to it for 1 day, then went back to Windows 10, can't see how it is usable in this state.

update: by usable I don't mean stability, it is stable (but less than Windows 10), I mean more the features they removed from windows 10, mainly start menu and taskbar, they are really limiting my ability to do what I need to do as quickly as before.

 

[Prrredictable]

I nearly fell for Windows 11 gaining in Steam charts, I upgraded to it for 1 day, then went back to Windows 10, can't see how it is usable in this state.

Interesting. I upgraded a couple months ago and have noticed no issues at all. I also haven't noticed any performance improvement, but I do like the look of many of the menus and what not now. I would consider myself an extremely heavy user of a gaming PC for all sort of tasks and entertainment.

 

[dirtyferret]

Interesting. I upgraded a couple months ago and have noticed no issues at all.

I've been using it on my work PC for some time, upgraded both my laptops to it a few months ago and my gaming PC to it last month after a CPU/mobo rebuild. I've yet to have any issues.

 

[texasrattler]

I nearly fell for Windows 11 gaining in Steam charts, I upgraded to it for 1 day, then went back to Windows 10, can't see how it is usable in this state.

No issues here. I use it for gaming and everyday use. I do not use it for business purposes.

I know there were some early issues with 11 but I didn't get it until like May or June. That's when windows update let me have it. Which was fine for me. Wasn't in a hurry. 10 works fine also. I just updated and I wanted to try it. As I have said, working fine here.

 

[Mr Majestyk]

I think now we know Windows 12 will ship in 2024, most will skip 11 and wait and see if 12 is worth it. 11 is turning out to be the new Vista, a turkey. 10 will be supported until 2025, so no rush.

 

[Puiu]

I think now we know Windows 12 will ship in 2024, most will skip 11 and wait and see if 12 is worth it. 11 is turning out to be the new Vista, a turkey. 10 will be supported until 2025, so no rush.

I think the next big 11 update which should launch this year should be ok to use.

If you look at all the metrics, there's a clear indication that this month's survey excluded a lot of laptops and instead included a lot of desktops compared to last months' as almost all the video cards that lost share were older laptop and integrated graphics, with some non-RT Turing GPUs (used in laptops) as well. Which non-RT Turing GPUs didn't lose market share? The 1650 Super and 1660 Super, which are desktop-only parts.

Also 1366x768 and 1440x900 were the big losers: laptop resolutions. Frankly, Intel CPUs are dominant in laptops as well with that share going down. Biggest VRAM losers are 1 and 2GB for these laptop GPUs and biggest CPU core count losers were 2 cores, also common in laptops.

All these are ~2% reductions pointing to a low-laptop skew in the data gathering. Not sure why laptops took it on the chin this month but yay for noisy Steam results.

or they upgraded their laptops to an AMD one

 

[Lounds]

I think we'll see big growth in AMD laptops next year.

 

[Puiu]

I think we'll see big growth in AMD laptops next year.

Only they manage to keep with the good availability. I've never seen OEM's making so many good AMD laptops ever.

 

[defaultluser]

While I‘m happy with AMD‘s CPU numbers they make absolutely no sense in light of Intel doing noticeably better in retail / consumer space after Alder Lake‘s launch.

Still feel these Steam survey stats are worthless.

No, you're just not paying attention. In anticipation of Zen 4, AMD has been cutting prices of everything - you can even find the Ryzen 9 5900 for almost half MSRP.

https://www.antonline.com/AMD/Computers/Electronic_Components/Microprocessors/1411789

And 6-8 cores here:

AMD's New Ryzen 7 5700X and 5600 Drop To All-Time Low Prices for Prime Day (Updated)

Upgraders, ready your systems!

www.tomshardware.com

when AMD has such a massive installed base of AM4 mobos (all of which now support Zen 3), you would be absolutely stupid upgrading to Alder Lake for 10% faster single-thread! Allow me to explain:

Alder Lake, need mobo plus CPU, so its either a i5 12600k + $100 crap DDR4 mobo, or buy 12 core zen 3 for the exact same price!.

And oh yeah, this is also happening, because Intel lost massive amounts this last quarter:

https://asia.nikkei.com/Business/Te...-plans-price-hikes-on-broad-range-of-products

 

[Irata]

No, you're just not paying attention. In anticipation of Zen 4, AMD has been cutting prices of everything - you can even find the Ryzen 9 5900 for almost half MSRP.

https://www.antonline.com/AMD/Computers/Electronic_Components/Microprocessors/1411789

And 6-8 cores here:

AMD's New Ryzen 7 5700X and 5600 Drop To All-Time Low Prices for Prime Day (Updated)

Upgraders, ready your systems!

www.tomshardware.com

when AMD has such a massive installed base of AM4 mobos (all of which now support Zen 3), you would be absolutely stupid upgrading to Alder Lake for 10% faster single-thread! Allow me to explain:

Alder Lake, need mobo plus CPU, so its either a i5 12600k + $100 crap DDR4 mobo, or buy 12 core zen 3 for the exact same price!.

And oh yeah, this is also happening, because Intel lost massive amounts this last quarter:

https://asia.nikkei.com/Business/Te...-plans-price-hikes-on-broad-range-of-products

Did check sales charts and Ryzen has indeed taken back a lot of sales that Alder Lake had captured after its launch.