Latest Steam survey suggests gamers are once again buying more powerful graphics cards

[midian182]

In brief: Valve has released October's Steam survey results. Last month's figures, which come from optional participation by the platform's millions of users, suggest gamers are once again buying graphics cards on the higher end of the scale following a month in which cheaper GPUs were the top performers.

The GPU section of the Steam survey shows the RTX 3060 was once again the best-performing card, something we've seen in previous months. It was up 1.95% to take a 5.47% total share, making it the fourth most popular card among participants.

Apart from a couple of older cards (GTX 1660 and GTX 1060) that saw gains last month, the top twelve best performers were mid-to-higher-end Ampere and Turing products, such as the RTX 3070, 3070 Ti, and 2080 Super. That contrasts September's survey in which older and less expensive cards saw the biggest increases. Gamers might be upgrading to deal with more demanding titles such as Plague Tale Requiem and the upcoming Dead Space remake (and, to a lesser extent, Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2).

The best-performing graphics cards last month

The most popular card among participants remains the GTX 1060, the top card since it replaced the GTX 750 Ti in January 2018. We also see that the RTX 2060 has moved from the third to second spot. Further down the list is the RTX 3060, which has moved from sixth to fourth. If one combined its share with the laptop version, that would make the RTX 3060 the most popular GPU on the list.

The most popular graphics cards among participants

October was a bad time for AMD. Its processor share fell for the fourth month in a row against Intel, dropping below 30% for the first time since August last year. With the Ryzen 7000 sales off to a slow start and Raptor Lake sales looking strong, team red isn't having the best time right now.

Elsewhere, Windows 10 experienced an increase in users as Windows 11 recorded a rare decline. And despite Microsoft ending support years ago, Windows 7 users were up 1.19% last month. In terms of RAM, 16GB cemented its place as the most common amount of memory in people's machines, and the Oculus Quest 2 is by far the most popular VR headset (41.49%).

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https://www.techspot.com/news/96542-latest-steam-survey-suggests-gamers-once-again-buying.html

 

[seeprime]

It would be great if it was reported that Windows 7 FREE support ended. Paid support from MS continues for enterprise users through January 2023. 0patch also supports 7 through 11 with critical patches that all too often beat Microsoft to the punch, especially when it comes to zero day vulnerabilities.

 

[Nobina]

Windows 7 share rising makes me question the validity of Steam Surveys.

 

[nnguy2]

Windows 7 share rising makes me question the validity of Steam Surveys.

Steam surveys makes me question the validity of Steam surveys.

 

[Theinsanegamer]

MS's push for windows accounts is causing more alienation. Wonder if we'll get windows 12 in a few years....

AMD is hamstrung by motherboard pricing. A620 is promising though...

 

[Avro Arrow]

I've NEVER managed to get this stupid survey to work on my PC so I don't even regard it as valid.

 

[Thatsdisgusting]

Steam surveys makes me question the validity of Steam surveys.

Surveys makes me question the validity all surveys at all...

 

[nnguy2]

Surveys makes me question the validity all surveys at all...

When a survey doesn't release their survey methodology the validity of the result is questioned.

 

[Lew Zealand]

Oh yeah, people still snappin' up those brand new hot-for-gaming GTX 1060s and lord knows that GTX 1660 is just a jumpin' deal when you have to pay a giant $10 more for the 1660 Super to get a crappy 15% more performance!

But people are talking about the Steam Survey, so this advertising campaign is doing its monthly job like clockwork.

 

[Lew Zealand]

Everything explained:

English: -3.66%
Simplified Chinese: +5.68%

Chinese Internet cafes included this month that weren't being before. And in a month or two they'll be dropped again...

 

[BSim500]

Oh yeah, people still snappin' up those brand new hot-for-gaming GTX 1060s and lord knows that GTX 1660 is just a jumpin' deal when you have to pay a giant $10 more for the 1660 Super to get a crappy 15% more performance!

People aren't buying new GTX 1060's / 1660's, it's just the existing owners are still using them because after 3-6 years there's still no "Actually Same Tier" replacement after the joke that is the RTX 3050 (that actually replaces the RTX 2060 in price but at a slower speed / is the same speed as a GTX 1660S but +50% the price). Likewise, when the GTX 1650 Super (1280 shaders) is "replaced" by the GTX 1630 (512 shaders) at same price point, then you know older non p*ss take GPU's are here to stay.

When nVidia virtually abandons the sub $300 market, budget gamers will respond by buying 2nd hand GPU's and keeping them longer. And I wouldn't be the slightest bit surprised to see GTX 1060 / 1660's at the top of 2023-2024 Steam Survey charts if nVidia's RTX 4050 ends up $500 whilst their idea of an "Actually Budget (tm") $200 GPU is a GTX 2030 with 768 shaders...

Edit: As to those who keep filling up these threads with "survey sux because no-one's buying W7", the truth is as Lew Zealand pointed out - W7 has been undercounted in the Asian markets hence why there's always an increase in "Simplified Chinese" users when W7 gets recounted again. Eg, at one point, Chinese Internet cafes took many PC's offline from "Internet cafe stuff", wiped W7, put Linux on and mined on it. They weren't counted because there was no Steam installed. Then when the mining bubble collapsed, they wiped Linux off, put W7 + Steam back on and put them back into service as Internet Cafe PC's.

 

[Beerfloat]

The Steam survey provides such valuable insights on what is really happening in the PC gaming market. For all of its alleged flaws, there isn't anything better out there.

This month's trends are encouraging!

 

[punctualturn]

People aren't buying new GTX 1060's / 1660's, it's just the existing owners are still using them because after 3-6 years there's still no "Actually Same Tier" replacement after the joke that is the RTX 3050 (that actually replaces the RTX 2060 in price but at a slower speed / is the same speed as a GTX 1660S but +50% the price). Likewise, when the GTX 1650 Super (1280 shaders) is "replaced" by the GTX 1630 (512 shaders) at same price point, then you know older non p*ss take GPU's are here to stay.

When nVidia virtually abandons the sub $300 market, budget gamers will respond by buying 2nd hand GPU's and keeping them longer. And I wouldn't be the slightest bit surprised to see GTX 1060 / 1660's at the top of 2023-2024 Steam Survey charts if nVidia's RTX 4050 ends up $500 whilst their idea of an "Actually Budget (tm") $200 GPU is a GTX 2030 with 768 shaders...

Edit: As to those who keep filling up these threads with "survey sux because no-one's buying W7", the truth is as Lew Zealand pointed out - W7 has been undercounted in the Asian markets hence why there's always an increase in "Simplified Chinese" users when W7 gets recounted again. Eg, at one point, Chinese Internet cafes took many PC's offline from "Internet cafe stuff", wiped W7, put Linux on and mined on it. They weren't counted because there was no Steam installed. Then when the mining bubble collapsed, they wiped Linux off, put W7 + Steam back on and put them back into service as Internet Cafe PC's.

Not that I am calling you a nvidia cult member, because I cant assume that, but amazing how you wrote such a post without even mentioning one AMD gpu.

Less educated gamers, that only knows nvidia and are reading these post would not even learn that AMD has similar and better gpus on those tiers.

Anyways, I have been a Steam member for over 10 years and I have yet to receive one survey.

Here is how you can trigger it though:

Windows:

First, press the Windows Key + the R key simultaneously to summon Windows 10’s “Run” prompt. Now, enter one of the four lines:

steam://takesurvey/1/ steam://takesurvey/2/ steam://takesurvey/3/ steam://takesurvey/4/

Linux:

1) Entirely shutdown / quit from steam.

2) run: sed -I -e '/SurveyDate/ s/"[0-9].*"/"'$(date +%Y-%m-%d -d "1 year ago")'"/' ~/.local/share/Steam/config/config.vdf

3) Start steam.

Keep in mind, some say that the info might not end up received by Steam servers.