Steam Survey: AMD's CPU gains stall as Nvidia's final RTX 5000 desktop GPU appears

[midian182]

What just happened? The latest Steam survey has dropped. Last month's results show that the final RTX 5000-series desktop card has now entered the main GPU chart, nearly one year after it launched. Elsewhere, Intel's excellent Core Ultra 200 Plus series may have started to influence the CPU results as AMD failed to move the needle in its favor during April.

There was little movement at the top of the GPU chart as the RTX 3060 remained the most popular option among survey participants. Its place at the top could be cemented if reports that Nvidia is re-releasing the 2021 card in July – a response to the memory crisis – prove accurate.

Most popular GPUs among Steam survey participants during April

April also saw the final member of the RTX 5000 desktop series enter the main chart. The RTX 5050, which launched last July, appeared with a 0.17% share, making it the GPU with the third-highest gains last month behind the RTX 5060 Ti and RTX 5060.

The only RTX 5000 products now missing from the main chart are the RTX 5080 Laptop and RTX 5090 Laptop GPUs.

Best-performing GPUs among Steam survey participants during April

April's CPU chart will likely be pleasing to see for Intel. AMD has consistently been eroding Team Blue's user share for well over a year now and is just 11% behind its rival. While AMD did make gains in April, they were negligible (0.01%).

AMD's X3D CPUs have long been driving the company's sales among gamers thanks to their excellent gaming performance. Intel had no real killer option of its own – until it launched the Core Ultra 200 Plus chips in March.

We called the Ultra 5 250K Plus a highly efficient, blisteringly fast productivity CPU with gaming performance that rivals AMD at the same price point. We were equally full of praise for the 270K Plus, noting that it's generally the better choice than the 9700X for gaming, offering stronger frame-time performance.

Elsewhere in the survey, Windows 11 keeps growing its lead, though Windows 10 saw a surprising (small) increase last month. Linux's share was also down, which has become a rare sight in the era of the Steam Deck. We also found that, despite new 1080p monitors often being associated with esports players due to their blisteringly fast refresh rates, the resolution's lead among participants actually grew – likely helped by the popularity of budget models.

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Steam Survey: AMD's CPU gains stall as Nvidia's final RTX 5000 desktop GPU appears

 

[Rapob]

While Arrow Lake has become better with time, who buys into a dead platform? Not many builds a new system due to RAM crisis, probably the reason why AMD stalled, almost 50% marketshare is huge for AMD. Would be unthinkable 10 years ago.

Intel became the value choice in many aspects. Look at Arrow Lake pricing. Intel had to lower 265K to almost 7700X level for it to sell with tons of bundle sales as well. Same with 14th gen, mostly cheap and on sale.

I hope Nova Lake will do good because competition in the X86 CPU space is crucial. ARM will probably grab more and more from here tho.

Linux down 1%, Windows up 1% - Doubt gamers flee... Most Linux marketshare on Steam is from someone who's main system is still Windows.

 

[yRaz]

I think this might be more to do with the memory crisis and you can get some really good combo deals on 14 series Intel hardware

 

[Theinsanegamer]

While Arrow Lake has become better with time, who buys into a dead platform? Not many builds a new system due to RAM crisis, probably the reason why AMD stalled, almost 50% marketshare is huge for AMD. Would be unthinkable 10 years ago.

Most people do not care. CPUs age very slowly, coffee lake is still entirely usable in modern games despite being 8 years old.

Go look at the forums out there with AMD ownership clubs, and you will see that 90%+ of ryzen 5000 owners....own 500 series boards. Not 400, and certainly not 300, which never received full AGESA compatibility with zen 3.

Had you bought a X370 motherboard when it came out you would be SOL because they dont support the 5800x3d or fully support any of the 5000s, and you have to buy a newer motherboard anyway. Sure the 400s do support them, but they also suck for getting 3000+ mhz out of memory and they are limited to PCI3 3.0. so you can either buy a 5800x3d and a new motherboard and new RAM, or you can buy a 270k plus...with a new motherboard and new RAM.

Either one will happily runt he latest games for a decade, at which point socket AM5 will be out of support too. Chasing CPU upgrades is a colossal waste of resources, I bought into every gen of AM4 CPU and spent far more then if I had just built a 8700k rig when new then replaced it later with a 270k plus rig this year. RAM crisis notwithstanding, upgrading CPUs rarely pays off.

Intel became the value choice in many aspects. Look at Arrow Lake pricing. Intel had to lower 265K to almost 7700X level for it to sell with tons of bundle sales as well. Same with 14th gen, mostly cheap and on sale.

I hope Nova Lake will do good because competition in the X86 CPU space is crucial. ARM will probably grab more and more from here tho.

Linux down 1%, Windows up 1% - Doubt gamers flee... Most Linux marketshare on Steam is from someone who's main system is still Windows.

The sooner ARM becomes the standard and frees us from the x86 duopoly the better.

I think this might be more to do with the memory crisis and you can get some really good combo deals on 14 series Intel hardware

Thats why my media pc is intel. I got a 12400f, motherboard, and 32GB of RAM back int he day for the same price as a 7700x cost, let alone a 7800x3d.

 

[Hecate91]

Most people do not care. CPUs age very slowly, coffee lake is still entirely usable in modern games despite being 8 years old.

Go look at the forums out there with AMD ownership clubs, and you will see that 90%+ of ryzen 5000 owners....own 500 series boards. Not 400, and certainly not 300, which never received full AGESA compatibility with zen 3.

Had you bought a X370 motherboard when it came out you would be SOL because they dont support the 5800x3d or fully support any of the 5000s, and you have to buy a newer motherboard anyway. Sure the 400s do support them, but they also suck for getting 3000+ mhz out of memory and they are limited to PCI3 3.0. so you can either buy a 5800x3d and a new motherboard and new RAM, or you can buy a 270k plus...with a new motherboard and new RAM.

Either one will happily runt he latest games for a decade, at which point socket AM5 will be out of support too. Chasing CPU upgrades is a colossal waste of resources, I bought into every gen of AM4 CPU and spent far more then if I had just built a 8700k rig when new then replaced it later with a 270k plus rig this year. RAM crisis notwithstanding, upgrading CPUs rarely pays off.

Most people don't upgrade their systems period so that's a moot point, anything older than 10th gen is going to feel slow in W11.

Have you actually looked at support lists for any X370 motherboards? Plenty of them have support for 5000 series CPU's.
CPU clubs aren't a metric for what motherboard everyone uses, I trust that stat as much as the Steam HW survey.
Complaining about RAM speed and PCI 3.0 is pointless nitpicking, it won't win you anything but benchmark scores, and if you care so much about having the latest hardware, you're not going to keep a system anyway.
Having socket longevity is a nice option, and AMD isn't forcing you to buy every new generation. AM5 is over 3 years old, yet will support Zen 6, with rumors of supporting Zen 7. Meanwhile LGA1700 is dead with no real upgrade path over 12th gen unless you want to take a risk on a CPU degrading itself to death.

The sooner ARM becomes the standard and frees us from the x86 duopoly the better.

And the sooner enthusiasts are stuck with mini PC's that have no upgrade capability at all.

Thats why my media pc is intel. I got a 12400f, motherboard, and 32GB of RAM back int he day for the same price as a 7700x cost, let alone a 7800x3d.

A 7600X would have been just fine as a media PC CPU.

 

[Theinsanegamer]

Most people don't upgrade their systems period so that's a moot point,

Thank you for proving me correct.

anything older than 10th gen is going to feel slow in W11.

Nope. win11 outperforms 10 in gaming, as Techspot reviewed and showed.

Have you actually looked at support lists for any X370 motherboards? Plenty of them have support for 5000 series CPU's.
CPU clubs aren't a metric for what motherboard everyone uses, I trust that stat as much as the Steam HW survey.
Complaining about RAM speed and PCI 3.0 is pointless nitpicking, it won't win you anything but benchmark scores, and if you care so much about having the latest hardware, you're not going to keep a system anyway.
Having socket longevity is a nice option, and AMD isn't forcing you to buy every new generation. AM5 is over 3 years old, yet will support Zen 6, with rumors of supporting Zen 7. Meanwhile LGA1700 is dead with no real upgrade path over 12th gen unless you want to take a risk on a CPU degrading itself to death.

Everything you just argued is nitpicking over facts you dont like. Most people, as you said, do not upgrade. Socket longevity is meaningless for anyone not on the forums. And you should take a closer look at those 300 boards, the 5000 series are using BETA code, turbos do not function correctly, neither do the enhanced CPU power tables, and x3d usage is spotty at best.

And the sooner enthusiasts are stuck with mini PC's that have no upgrade capability at all.

This might be the most tech illiterate thing you have ever said. Upgrade capability is not tied to CPU architecture at all. You do know that there exist ARM servers using Qualcomm CPUs that support PCI express cards, right? There is nothing from a technological perspective that prevents Intel or AMD from releasing ARM CPUs on LGA 1851 or AM5. So long as the firmware on their motherboards is updated and the UEFI is updated to accept the new CPU they would work just fine.

A 7600X would have been just fine as a media PC CPU.

The 7600x was a $300 part. The i512400f and motherboard combo was only $220,a nd 32GB of DDR4 RAM was a measly $60. You completely missed the point of that conversation, which was that Intel was a significantly better deal for the performance. Try again. Or dont, and save yourself the embarrassment.

 

[poshflamingos]

The 7600x was a $300 part.

The launch "X" models are a newbie trap. The Ryzen 7600 launched just 3 months later at $230, and fell below $200 within a year. It's still $170 today.

The i512400f and motherboard combo was only $220,a nd 32GB of DDR4 RAM was a measly $60.

Sure, but those aren't equivalent, the 7600/7600X wipes the floor with the 12400F in performance. The equivalent to the 12400F was the Ryzen 5600. It was marginally more expensive ($120 when the 12400F was $110), but with cheaper boards, and also uses DDR4.

Also, it's hilarious how some users are so lost in the sauce of brand loyalty they just decide to become the Intel Defense Force and act like long term support for sockets is a bad thing. AM4 was the best socket that has existed in the last several decades. The reality is, someone who built a Ryzen 3600 system back in the day can simply drop a Ryzen 5600 or 5700X3D in its place and have a huge performance uplift on the same platform. Someone who built an equivalent 10400F/11400F system is stuck forever without a platform upgrade. There's no arguing with the massive benefit to consumers this is.

Your arguments against it are some anecdotal observetions you made of a small handful of users on some unspecified forum (I.e. nonsense with zero statistic significance), and some completely made up, unsourced claims about 300-series boards running "beta code" and being "unable to run RAM over 3000 MHz". It is genuinely hilarious you think you can just make ridiculous claims like this without providing any evidence and people will still take you seriously.

 

[loki1944]

Awesome.

 

[Rapob]

Most people do not care. CPUs age very slowly, coffee lake is still entirely usable in modern games despite being 8 years old.

Go look at the forums out there with AMD ownership clubs, and you will see that 90%+ of ryzen 5000 owners....own 500 series boards. Not 400, and certainly not 300, which never received full AGESA compatibility with zen 3.

Had you bought a X370 motherboard when it came out you would be SOL because they dont support the 5800x3d or fully support any of the 5000s, and you have to buy a newer motherboard anyway. Sure the 400s do support them, but they also suck for getting 3000+ mhz out of memory and they are limited to PCI3 3.0. so you can either buy a 5800x3d and a new motherboard and new RAM, or you can buy a 270k plus...with a new motherboard and new RAM.

Either one will happily runt he latest games for a decade, at which point socket AM5 will be out of support too. Chasing CPU upgrades is a colossal waste of resources, I bought into every gen of AM4 CPU and spent far more then if I had just built a 8700k rig when new then replaced it later with a 270k plus rig this year. RAM crisis notwithstanding, upgrading CPUs rarely pays off.

The sooner ARM becomes the standard and frees us from the x86 duopoly the better.

Thats why my media pc is intel. I got a 12400f, motherboard, and 32GB of RAM back int he day for the same price as a 7700x cost, let alone a 7800x3d.

Tons of people use 5800X3D on 300 series boards. I even helped several people make that upgrade on 300/400 boards. What you claim is not true at all. I bet you have zero experience with AMD. Go check firmware updates on pretty much all 300 boards. Ryzen 5000 is supported in pretty much all cases, or there is beta firmwares that will work.

Also, CPUs don't age slow if you care about high fps and high performance and tons of people do, when using 240+ Hz monitors. Just because your demands are low, does not mean no-one care. You are a casual gamer with low demands. Hence why an i5-12400 is "fine" for you.

Coffee Lake is pure crap for high fps gaming in 2026. 12400 is fairly low-end, and don't compare to 7700X or even comes close. 7800X3D literally destroys it. Stop making weird comparisons. You are compairing apples with oranges.

Reality is that AMD destroys Intel in gaming and Intel has no chance of beating X3D before bLLC chips are ready, next year. This is especially true if you don't look at GPU bound gaming (like casuals), hence why most serious players, pro gamers etc, now uses AMD X3D. High fps gamers are pretty much always CPU bound and CPU is more important than GPU in most cases.

I play BF6 with 500 fps on a 500 Hz OLED monitor with a OCed 9800X3D and 4090. I am never below 250 fps 1% minimum lows. Try that on an Intel CPU. You will fail. Even a 14900KS loses bigtime to 9800X3D in high fps / CPU bound gaming overall.

Battlefield 6 Heavily Favors CPUs with 3D V-Cache, 9800X3D Smokes i9-14900K

With closed beta access to Battlefield 6, popular Twitch streamers such as Bruhskey are able to tell us some early performance numbers for the game, and while their NDAs prevent them for sharing screenshots just yet, these can be counted as reliable sources. Bruhskey says that his AMD Ryzen 7...

www.techpowerup.com

Intel has become the cheap value choice, that is correct in many cases. Because their CPUs don't sell well, as AMD eats more and more marketshare. This is true for laptop, mainstream, HEDT (Intel has nothing) and Enterprise. AMD gained massive marketshare in the last 5 years in all areas and Intel is the one trying to keep up.

Intel had huge problems with degradation and crashing on 13th and 14th series. Arrow Lake flopped on launch, big time. All while AMD topped sales charts and still does. AMD dominate the DIY segment.

Nova Lake and Socket 1954 is Intels best bet of a comeback. They can't afford to fail again. AMD could release Zen 6 now if they wanted to but they don't need to. They will wait and distrupt Intels launch, likely with Zen 6 X3D offerings on launch day.

I hope Intel will do well with Nova Lake but Intel has nothing today that I would touch with a 10 feet pole. They are still mostly selling 2022 stuff in 14th generation which is just a minor refresh of 13th generation from 2022 and close to Alder Lake from 2021, about 5 year old tech with silly e-cores.

While Arrow Lake refresh is not pure garbage and e-cores actually improved alot compared to 12, 13 and 14th generation, it is a dead end platform with no future and for gaming, it makes no sense but atleast Intel fixed the massive power usage, thanks to TSMC.

Proof that (serious) gamers flee from Intel:

Pro Counter-Strike 2 gamer says game runs like 'a**' on anything other than AMD's Ryzen 9800X3D — custom demo of the game runs at under 200 FPS even on on AMD's best gaming CPUs

Esports pro Ropz asked X users to run a replay of a CS2 match featuring intensive gameplay, and even Ryzen 9 9950X3D's are dipping below 200 FPS.

www.tomshardware.com

PGL CS2 tournament uses Ryzen 7 7800X3D CPU and GeForce RTX 4080 GPU for esports champs

PGL's upcoming CS2 Major Copenhagen 2024 event has $1.25 million in prize money for Counter-Strike 2 champions, with 7800X3D and RTX 4080 powering the PCs.

www.tweaktown.com

Major CS2 tournament to update its systems with AMD 7800X3D CPUs and Nvidia RTX 4080 graphics

A Ryzen 7 7800X3D and GeForce RTX 4080 combo may look like overkill for Counter-Strike 2, but it's not for pros.

www.tomshardware.com

 

[Strawman]

I play BF6 with 500 fps on a 500 Hz OLED monitor with a OCed 9800X3D and 4090. I am never below 250 fps 1% minimum lows. Try that on an Intel CPU. You will fail. Even a 14900KS loses bigtime to 9800X3D in high fps / CPU bound gaming overall.

On an empty map? You are nowhere near 500 fps or 250 fps 1% minimums with the 9800x 3d or the 4090. Even at lowest settings 1080p the 4090 cannot hit 500 fps, and neither can the 9800x 3d. Post a video playing any bf6 map at 500 fps. Ill be waiting.