The Steam {Hardware} Survey (opens in new tab) has up to date its outcomes for November 2022, and there are some attention-grabbing tidbits to tug from the information. Not solely is there a brand new prime desktop card (opens in new tab), however it’s the primary time this has occurred for a very long time. Caveats, in fact, apply. Elsewhere, we see Intel and AMD built-in GPUs rising up the ranks, whereas there are extra avid gamers utilizing Linux than ever earlier than.
The Geforce GTX 1650 (opens in new tab) now tops the GPU reputation contest. The low-end Turing card from 2019 had a 0.66% month over month enhance, rising to the head of the graphics card rankings with a 6.27% share of avid gamers. In the meantime, the GTX 1060 that was the previous chief sank by 1.85% to five.77%. The 1060 was launched in 2016 and had reigned since January 2018, the Pascal card proving in style for its worth to efficiency ratio and comparatively low energy consumption.
There are in fact numerous disclaimers we have to toss out. First, these are some massive swings, which leads us to suppose Valve might need modified the best way it samples, or it simply obtained a really totally different sampling sample. Second, sure GPUs have their figures mixed whereas others don’t — the Steam {Hardware} Survey combines figures for the 3GB and 6GB variants of the cardboard, together with cellular and desktop variants, for instance. That applies to the GTX 1650, which incorporates GDDR5 and GDDR6 variants, together with cellular and desktop variations.
If we do that very same grouping of entries, the RTX 3060 would technically be in first place. The desktop card sits at 3.41% and the laptop computer variant accounts for an additional 4.63%, for a mixed 8.04%. Nonetheless, if you happen to ignore the finer particulars, that is the primary time we have seen a special GPU atop the listing in fairly a protracted whereas.
The RTX 2060, a former contender for the highest spot, additionally noticed a quite huge drop in reputation of 1.46%, with 4.46% of respondents having one of their rig. Once more, that is a quite huge swing for an almost 4 years outdated GPU to have in a single month. The truth is, lots of the prime 20 GPUs present quite massive single-month swings, so it is greater than doubtless that Valve’s sampling methodology is responsible. Perhaps it up to date issues to be extra correct; we are able to solely hope.
As regular, the highest 20 playing cards is a severely Nvidia-heavy zone, with AMD’s Radeon Graphics built-in chip its solely entry at quantity 13. Intel can be represented by built-in GPUs, the Iris Xe used on eleventh and Twelfth-gen chips, and the UHD Graphics that got here in with 2017’s Kaby Lake Refresh.
The one actually top-end card (opens in new tab) within the prime 20 is the RTX 3080 (opens in new tab), which noticed a slight bump to 1.84% of respondents to the survey. AMD’s RX 580 (opens in new tab) sits at quantity 21, simply forward of the built-in Vega 8 GPU. The most recent playing cards from all producers (RTX 4090, RTX 4080, and Intel Arc A770/A750) are nowhere to be seen, although it normally takes a number of months for newcomers to point out up.
By way of CPUs, Intel nonetheless reigns with 67.1% of the customers, although this has dropped by nearly 4 p.c from its peak in October. AMD gained all that market share, rising to 32.87%. The most well-liked Intel processor speeds have been within the 2.3 to 2.69GHz vary, suggesting laptops (opens in new tab), whereas AMD noticed its largest cohort working 3.3 to three.69GHz CPUs.
Apple Silicon chips took over from Intel for the primary time in Mac Land, a 1.04% rise simply pushing the Arm-based CPUs over the 50% mark. Linux gaming additionally noticed a rise in reputation, doubtless due to the Steam Deck (opens in new tab), with a 0.16% rise which means 1.44% of avid gamers who responded use the open-source OS, with the preferred distro being Ubuntu, although Arch Linux, on which SteamOS is constructed, sits in second place.
General, there are some attention-grabbing adjustments, however Valve’s statistical strategies stay, at finest, nebulous. With no rationalization on how knowledge will get collected (a few of us suspect “new” or “modified” {hardware} will get sampled extra usually than current {hardware}, for instance), we are able to solely current the outcomes as they stand and recommend folks not learn too deeply into issues.