AMD gains more ground in Steam’s latest hardware survey
Intel continues to lose ground in Steam’s latest hardware survey
Valve has released the results of its newest Steam hardware survey, revealing some interesting data about Steam’s user base. In August, AMD surpassed 40% of the CPU market share for the first time, as Intel lost ground. This trend has continued, with AMD now holding a 42% share of the CPU market amongst gamers.
In 2020, Intel held a 77% market share of CPUs in Steam’s hardware survey. Now, Intel has 57,68% market share. If current trends continue, AMD could hold over 50% of the CPU market share on Steam within a year.
Note that Steam’s hardware survey accounts for all PCs using Steam, not just new PCs. AMD’s fast market share gains imply that most newly built gaming PCs use AMD Ryzen CPUs. It is also likely that upgraders are retiring older Intel-based gaming PCs and are replacing them with AMD-powered systems.
(CPU Usage on Steam (AMD VS Intel) – via Steam Hardware Survey)
Intel’s market share could decrease rapidly if it can’t fix its gaming problems
Intel’s current problems within the PC gaming market are due to the company’s lacklustre Arrow Lake CPU lineup. Today’s Intel Arrow Lake CPUs can often be bested by their last-generation Raptor Lake counterparts. This gives PC gamers no incentive to buy new Intel CPUs for their gaming PCs. In contrast, AMD delivered significant performance gains with its Ryzen 7 9800X3D gaming CPU, securing performance leadership for AMD (at least in the gaming market).
Intel’s high CPU share on Steam comes from its legacy users. Not all PC gamers are frequent upgraders. This is why it can take a long time for market share to change on Steam’s hardware survey. If current trends continue, more Intel-based PCs will be retired and more AMD-powered PCs will be built to replace them. If Intel cannot reassert itself within the PC gaming market, AMD will be poised to take Intel’s mantle as Steam’s most-used CPU provider.
You can join the discussion on AMD’s rising CPU market share amongst gamers on the OC3D Forums.
