Steam survey highlights AMD's amazing year – Ryzen CPUs now comprise 40% of participants

[midian182]

In a nutshell: December's Steam survey results have arrived. The last month of the year is always an interesting one as it indicates popular Christmas gifts while also setting the stage for what's ahead. The most obvious takeaway from December? 2024 really was AMD's year – at least when it came to CPUs.

Starting with the processors category, December saw AMD reach another record-high share among participants of Valve's survey. Team Red users were up 3.02% last month, taking its total to 38.7% as Intel fell slightly to 63.4%.

The fact almost 40% of participants (on Windows) now use an AMD CPU is as much a testament to the company's success as it is to Intel's failures. It wasn't that long ago when AMD seemed destined never to grow its Steam user share above 30%.

Zen 5 wasn't exactly earth-shattering on its arrival, but still better received than Intel's Arrow Lake Core Ultra Series 2 desktop CPUs. Then the Ryzen 7 9800X3D chip arrived, earning the title of "The New Gaming CPU King" in our review and proving so popular it sold out everywhere. The instability issues in Intel's 13th- and 14th-generation processors have also impacted its sales of the older chips.

Moving to the GPU section, the biggest gains of the month were mostly shared between the RTX 40 series and 30 series xx60 and xx70 cards, with the RTX 4060 leading the pack. Somewhat surprisingly, the ancient GTX 1650 saw the fourth-highest gains.

Best-performing GPUs among Steam survey participants during December

AMD's best-performing desktop card of the month was the Radeon RX 6600 in 27th place.

The RTX 3060 continues to be the most popular card among participants. Mid-range Ampere and Lovelace GPUs make up almost all of the top 11 spots, the only exceptions being the GTX 1650 in fourth and the GTX 2060 in tenth.

Most popular GPUs among Steam survey participants during December

Elsewhere, Windows 11 is now comfortably the most popular OS in the survey. It pulled ahead another 2% to an almost 55% share in December as Windows 10 dropped to 42.3%.

With the older Windows version's end-of-support date ten months away, expect this trend to continue. However, it's a different story when looking at global users: Windows 10's share has increased two months in a row to 62.7% while Windows 11 has declined to 34.1%.

Rounding up the rest of the survey, 16GB of RAM remains the most popular amount of system RAM but it's lead is declining as second-place 32GB grows; a trend that is mirrored in the VRAM category.

Despite 1080p now mostly being limited to budget models or eSports monitors with blistering refresh rates, more than half (56.1%) the participants use this resolution. 1440p is the second most popular at 19.5%.

English saw a huge 9% jump in the languages category in December, cementing its position at the top with a 42.1% share as second-place Chinese fell slightly to 29.9%. Finally, most people still have more than 1TB of drive space, but only 100GB to 249GB free.

Permalink to story:

Steam survey highlights AMD's amazing year – Ryzen CPUs now comprise 40% of participants

 

[Endymio]

...it is as much a testament to the company's success as it is to Intel's failures. It wasn't that long ago when AMD seemed destined never to grow its user share above 30%.

It's important to remember that Steam users are not a representative sample of all cpu purchasers. In the broader marketplace, AMD is still limited to just under a 30% market share.

 

[rebeccatucker]

Excellent article.

 

[opckieran]

I once heard an automotive journalist say that when Ferrari did well in Formula 1, its road cars were rubbish, and that when Ferrari’s road cars were excellent, they were rubbish in Formula 1.

I don’t know how well that holds up today but it seems to be analogous for AMD’s CPU and GPU offerings.

 

[yRaz]

It's important to remember that Steam users are not a representative sample of all cpu purchasers. In the broader marketplace, AMD is still limited to just under a 30% market share.

Source?

 

[Theinsanegamer]

It's important to remember that Steam users are not a representative sample of all cpu purchasers. In the broader marketplace, AMD is still limited to just under a 30% market share.

It's also important to remember that the X3D chips are outselling the entire of non x3d ryzen CPUs right now. Those have one major purpose - gaming, a multi billion dollar industry.

https://www.techspot.com/news/106176-amd-ryzen-7-9800x3d-outsells-entire-ryzen-9000.html

 

[Dreadcthulhu]

It's also important to remember that the X3D chips are outselling the entire of non x3d ryzen CPUs right now. Those have one major purpose - gaming, a multi billion dollar industry.

https://www.techspot.com/news/106176-amd-ryzen-7-9800x3d-outsells-entire-ryzen-9000.html

Note, that article is about the 9800X3D chip outselling the non X3D 9000s at one DIY orientated retailer. It obviously not including any of the chip sales AMD makes to large OEMs (Lenovo, HP, Dell, Asus, etc); I assure you that if you included all the chips AMD sells that go into pre-builts that the non-X3D ones are greatly outselling the X3D ones

 

[Thrackerzod]

I'm surprised it's not higher. Intel has been overpriced garbage for years.

 

[human7]

Source?

A couple of months ago, but this seems to corroborate the 30% figure. https://www.techpowerup.com/328623/...-market-share-in-q3-2024-intel-maintains-lead

As with most of these surveys, I would slap on a +/- x% error bar on there, though I'm not sure what the error bar is. With Steam the error bars are fairly high, I doubt the market share would wig-wag so much from month to month. Steady trends are one thing, but going back-and-forth speaks to noise. Perhaps if it is legitimate, the up-and-down is from sales and such, but more likely it's just sampling bias.

 

[yRaz]

A couple of months ago, but this seems to corroborate the 30% figure. https://www.techpowerup.com/328623/...-market-share-in-q3-2024-intel-maintains-lead

As with most of these surveys, I would slap on a +/- x% error bar on there, though I'm not sure what the error bar is. With Steam the error bars are fairly high, I doubt the market share would wig-wag so much from month to month. Steady trends are one thing, but going back-and-forth speaks to noise. Perhaps if it is legitimate, the up-and-down is from sales and such, but more likely it's just sampling bias.

Eh, with as much controversy surrounding the 14 series and the success of the 9000 series, it might not be unusual. I can see people people who have workstations and high-end desktops switching to AMD. I also noticed a large uptick in the amount of available AMD laptops and miniPCs.

Maybe not a 10% swing, but between Intels current failings and AMDs current successes mixed with the timing of the two, I see a swing in marketshare outside of the margin of error more than plausible.

 

[Watzupken]

It's important to remember that Steam users are not a representative sample of all cpu purchasers. In the broader marketplace, AMD is still limited to just under a 30% market share.

This is true, but given that Steam is widely used by gamers, I think the message is more to say that gamers now prefers AMD CPUs over Intel. Given the negative publicity of Intel's Raptor Lake and the lackluster gaming performance from Arrow Lake, I feel Intel will continue to bleed market share. The saving grace for Intel is because they have established themself as a household brand which consumers who knows nuts about PC hardware trusts, so there is a tendency for most people to buy an Intel based laptop or desktop as long as it works.

 

[about30ninjas]

It's important to remember that Steam users are not a representative sample of all cpu purchasers. In the broader marketplace, AMD is still limited to just under a 30% market share.

Your point? Most people who follow this site do not care about what granny and grandpa may still be using to play Solitaire. Vast majority of readers will at least game a bit, most likely on Steam. Hints why this article is pertinent to this site.

 

[Endymio]

This is true, but given that Steam is widely used by gamers, I think the message is more to say that gamers now prefers AMD CPUs over Intel.

A 40% share isn't a majority. Will AMD break 50%? We'll see..

Your point? Most people who follow this site do not care about what granny and grandpa may still be using to play Solitaire.

Oops! The real revenue in chips isn't from the neckbeard gamers or grannie's desktop. It's the corporate market .. where Intel still has a commanding lead. Some of those may "game a little" yes -- but they don't choose a cpu around that.

 

[TooQik]

What's with the Steam figures....38.73% (AMD) + 63.43% (Intel) = 102.16% (Total) ?

Something doesn't add up. I'm 110% convinced they can't count.

 

[HardReset]

What's with the Steam figures....38.73% (AMD) + 63.43% (Intel) = 102.16% (Total) ?

Something doesn't add up. I'm 110% convinced they can't count.

That is because Steam actually takes all CPUs, not just x86. Therefore taking all CPUs and only taking account x86 ones actually can just adding numbers mean that x86 total share is over 100%.

If you didn't understand that, no worries. I didn't either. Steam just cannot do simple math correct. Underlines how crap that survey really is.

 

[TooQik]

That is because Steam actually takes all CPUs, not just x86. Therefore taking all CPUs and only taking account x86 ones actually can just adding numbers mean that x86 total share is over 100%.

If you didn't understand that, no worries. I didn't either. Steam just cannot do simple math correct. Underlines how crap that survey really is.

If that were the case the x86 percentage should be lower than 100%, not higher, as it's a smaller portion of a larger amount.

If you look at the PROCESSOR VENDOR (WINDOWS) values for AUG, SEP, OCT and NOV in the same image, they all add up to 100%, it's just the DEC values that exceed 100%.