March Steam Survey: RTX 2060 sees biggest gains but GTX 1060 remains on top

[midian182]

Why it matters: Steam’s hardware and software survey for March has arrived, giving us an idea of what’s becoming popular, or falling out of favor, among PC gamers. In the video card category, the GTX 1060 remained on top despite a 0.32 percent decrease in users, but the biggest increase was for the RTX 2060, which appeared on the list for the first time with a 0.26 percent share.

All the top three cards—GTX 1060, GTX 1050 Ti, and GTX 1050—experienced falls last month, but the fourth-place GTX 1070 was up 0.17 percent, likely due to the decreasing price of what remains an excellent product. The GTX 1080 Ti also saw gains (0.08 percent) as its cost drops and more of the former flagships appear on the second-hand market.

It was one of Nvidia’s newer video cards that saw the most significant increase during March. The RTX 2060 was up 0.26 percent, meaning this Turing-based GPU is now used by 0.26 percent of Steam users as this is the first time it's appeared on the survey. The other RTX cards also did well, with the RTX 2070 the most popular of the four (0.63 percent of users), followed by the RTX 2080 (0.48 percent), the RTX 2060, then the 2080 Ti (0.25 percent).

As usual, the list is dominated by the green team, but AMD’s first entry is higher than we’ve seen in previous months. The Radeon RX 580 is team red’s highest product, in fourteenth place. It experienced a 0.15 percent increase, bringing its total user numbers to 1.06 percent. Overall, Nvidia has a 74.75 percent share of the market, while AMD has 14.9 percent.

Away from graphics cards, the survey shows that 1920 x 1080 remains the most popular resolution by far, preferred by 61.19 percent of survey participants. And while 2560 x 1440 monitors are becoming more prevalent, the resolution has only a 4.53 percent share—even 1366 x 768 is more common (13.18 percent).

Elsewhere, 8GB of RAM is still used by the majority, though 16GB is quickly catching up. Over half the people surveyed have four physical CPUs. And the Oculus Rift is slightly more popular than HTC’s Vive.

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https://www.techspot.com/news/79550-march-steam-hardware-survey-rtx-2060-sees-biggest.html

 

[misor]

The Radeon RX 580 is team red’s first appearance in fourteenth place.

my brand new Asus RX 580 8GB is now counted! it replaced my vintage but still working EVGA G210 512MB DDR3 (which also previously replaced a dead Palit 9800GT 1GB DDR3)

https://imgur.com/a/xA3KVIE

 

[QuantumPhysics]

Most $1000 gaming laptops come with a GTX 1060 or 1050Ti.

Most off-the-shelf desktops came with a 1060 or 1050Ti.

Most people building desktops on a budget went with 1060's.

I think it will be 2 years before RTX 2060 takes over the 1060's spot.

The reality is: there are no new games so challenging to the hardware that games become completely unplayable on the 1060. Therefore it isn't obsolete and won't be for some time.

Only people chasing ULTRA 4K 60fps need much more.

 

[Puiu]

Most $1000 gaming laptops come with a GTX 1060 or 1050Ti.

Most off-the-shelf desktops came with a 1060 or 1050Ti.

Most people building desktops on a budget went with 1060's.

I think it will be 2 years before RTX 2060 takes over the 1060's spot.

The reality is: there are no new games so challenging to the hardware that games become completely unplayable on the 1060. Therefore it isn't obsolete and won't be for some time.

Only people chasing ULTRA 4K 60fps need much more.

I don't think the 2060 will ever take over the 1060. In 2 years we'll see the second gen RTX which should offer actually useful ray tracing hardware with a 7nm process node and for now the 1660 will be enough for most people.

 

[QuantumPhysics]

I don't think the 2060 will ever take over the 1060. In 2 years we'll see the second gen RTX which should offer actually useful ray tracing hardware with a 7nm process node and for now the 1660 will be enough for most people.

The missing variable is game complexity.

CRYSIS was one of the last games that straight up obsoleted entire rigs.

The tech industry is complacent releasing console-spec junk and sequels nowadays.

 

[Arris]

Most $1000 gaming laptops come with a GTX 1060 or 1050Ti

Majority of these aren't the desktop cards and are "M" variants that usually only have a fraction of the processing power of the non mobile versions so they won't count towards the charts, well hopefully they won't as they would be misrepresenting the popularity of the non mobile solutions.

 

[Dimitrios]

NVIDIA 's Jensen Huang's leather jackets are selling like hotcakes! Do note don't buy the RTX leather jacket, it's just soaked in that car detailing spray called ARMOR ALL. Thankfully it saved my life! Some dude wanted to fight me at the bar and he jumped on my back but slipped off.

 

[Puiu]

The missing variable is game complexity.

CRYSIS was one of the last games that straight up obsoleted entire rigs.

The tech industry is complacent releasing console-spec junk and sequels nowadays.

Crysis didn't run bad just because it had crazy graphics, it also had optimisation problems, especially early on.

We're also seeing nice jumps in graphics lately, but you can't blame devs not doing anything too crazy when both AMD and Nvidia delayed their next gen GPUs for so long and what they did manage to release were anaemic at best...

We should see a bigger jump in 2020 when we get new high end GPUs from both AMD and Nvidia (hopefully) and the next gen consoles.

 

[Lew Zealand]

More people gaming with Intel IG 4000 than Radeon 580. Damn. Helps explain 1366x768, though. Wait, and more people game with the GTX 1060 than all AMD cards combined!

Disclaimer: I've gamed with Intel IG 4000, but not in a long time.

 

[texasrattler]

The RTX 2060 showed up on the survey for the first time cause it was finally available from stores for the first time. People forget it can take weeks if not months for new product to arrive in stores. Not everyone wants or will buy online. A lot of people will wait till they can find it in store. I believe this was an example of this.
Oh, the reason for the AMD 580 bump was because its been sitting in stores and in some cases was the only option in that price category. Now that the 2060 and the 1660 ti are more available, numbers will change. They will also change again when the 1660 and 1650 hit stores.

I'm more curious if we will see a 1670 or a 1680 ti??? That will be interesting.

 

[texasrattler]

Most $1000 gaming laptops come with a GTX 1060 or 1050Ti

Majority of these aren't the desktop cards and are "M" variants that usually only have a fraction of the processing power of the non mobile versions so they won't count towards the charts, well hopefully they won't as they would be misrepresenting the popularity of the non mobile solutions.

There are no traditional M variants of the 10 series. There are Max Q versions. 10 series vs desktop parts aren't all that far apart. Yes some may be 20-30 % off but some are even closer. A lot closer than what the 8-9 series versions were.

Also numbers don't care if it's a Max Q or a desktop version.

 

[Route44]

I was surprised to see the GTX 970 actually gain. I run one and still delivers everything I need it for.

 

[David Matthews]

I'm proud to say that I contributed to the RTX 2060 percentage. That card is freakin great.

 

[Colonel Blimp]

No greater than many others that you didn't buy.

 

[TomSEA]

I know it's popular to dis the new RTX cards because of the ray tracing promises which are available on something like 3 games, plus the high pricing. I get it.

But I recently bought a 3rd party OC'd RTX 2070, and that thing just blows the hell out of what my GTX 980ti could do. I mean I'm talking anywhere from 30-50% higher FPS - and at higher settings, playing at 1440 rez for most games.

Probably paid a couple hundred more dollars than I should have for it. But performance-wise, I couldn't be more pleased. People really shouldn't knock the RTX series until they can see them first-hand in action.

 

[Puiu]

I know it's popular to dis the new RTX cards because of the ray tracing promises which are available on something like 3 games, plus the high pricing. I get it.

But I recently bought a 3rd party OC'd RTX 2070, and that thing just blows the hell out of what my GTX 980ti could do. I mean I'm talking anywhere from 30-50% higher FPS - and at higher settings, playing at 1440 rez for most games.

Probably paid a couple hundred more dollars than I should have for it. But performance-wise, I couldn't be more pleased. People really shouldn't knock the RTX series until they can see them first-hand in action.

The performance is there definitely. People just don't like the perf/$ it brought compared to the previous generation.

 

[Arris]

There are no traditional M variants of the 10 series. There are Max Q versions. 10 series vs desktop parts aren't all that far apart. Yes some may be 20-30 % off but some are even closer. A lot closer than what the 8-9 series versions were. Also numbers don't care if it's a Max Q or a desktop version.

Thanks for the correction, hadn't kept track of the latest nomenclature for the Nvidia mobile offerings.

I just remember the previous generations were gimped by comparison. Still, 30% difference is still considerable and having that counted as the same as the desktop version in these charts is misleading in my opinion.

 

[texasrattler]

Thanks for the correction, hadn't kept track of the latest nomenclature for the Nvidia mobile offerings.

I just remember the previous generations were gimped by comparison. Still, 30% difference is still considerable and having that counted as the same as the desktop version in these charts is misleading in my option.

Some are still gimped but the higher versions are much closer to their desktop version. But the real big deal is that laptop gpus are much better now than any previous generation. In the end that's more important for most.
If people really want desktop performance, buy a desktop then.

 

[Nocturne]

I don't think the 2060 will ever take over the 1060. In 2 years we'll see the second gen RTX which should offer actually useful ray tracing hardware with a 7nm process node and for now the 1660 will be enough for most people.

The missing variable is game complexity.

CRYSIS was one of the last games that straight up obsoleted entire rigs.

The tech industry is complacent releasing console-spec junk and sequels nowadays.

F.E.A.R then Crysis the problem is developers once pished the envelope of what was possible, the original Deus Ex brought a host of graphical features to the table the major issue is when things like tesselation and RayTracing come along bringing graphical fidelity rather than just resolution increases, you have the ***** trolls and the morons of gaming that pick up pitchforks damning it before it takes foothold, the developers see no need to use features until adoption rates increase thus not reinforcing the industry to do good things, also developers either are in 2 camps. They are lazy as f&$k, or they are under major pressure from time/publisher/deadlines to just use the same old same old to get it done with no real pizzazz added.