Steam survey hints at a GPU market recovery

By Fionna Agomuoh June 4, 2022

Valve’s latest monthly report might give a clue that the PC industry is recovering from its component shortage that has dragged on for over two years.

In its monthly user survey, Valve’s data shows that gamers accessing Steam were doing so from PCs running a higher number of Nvidia Ampere graphics cards. The RTX 3080 graphics card saw a 0.24% increase in usage during the month of May, while the RTX 3070 GPU saw a 0.19% increase.

Of course, cheaper and more readily accessible cards still remain the most common, but the growth is certainly encouraging to see. It coincides with recent drops in GPU pricing and increases in supply.

Get your weekly teardown of the tech behind PC gaming

AMD components have also made an appearance on the survey, with the RTX 3060 increasing 0.18% and the Radeon RX 6800 XT increasing 0.15%.

Valve's May 2022 Steam survey in a chart. — Image used with permission by copyright holder

These stats are pivotal as they hint that more and more gamers are getting access to these high-end GPUs, both as desktop parts and in gaming laptops, which have been scarce in recent months.

The overall graphics card increase has also seen AMD gain some market share against the consumer favorite, Intel at 1.24%. However, the competitor remains in a staunch lead with an overall 67.19% of users.

On the CPU side, the survey also uncovered that processors on the PCs used on Steam have steadily increased from four cores to six cores over the last five years, as noted by PCWorld.

Previously, a four-core CPU was the most common, but this May survey continues to show growth in higher core count processors. Approximately 33% of PCs on Steam were running four-core CPUs, while over 50% of PCs were running six-core systems.

Both Intel and AMD have introduced high-core CPUs beyond six, with even eight, 12, and 16 cores to its mid-range component line. Still, six seems to be the new standard for the average PC gamer, especially now that Intel has increased its CPU’s core count with the 12th-gen Alder Lake chips.

Lastly, Valve’s survey continues to show increases in Windows 11. The update is 0.41% away from being installed on every five PCs. Additionally, over 50% of those surveyed had 16GB of RAM.

Editors' Recommendations

Topics

Computing Writer

Fionna Agomuoh is a technology journalist with over a decade of experience writing about various consumer electronics topics…

Computing

Intel may fire the first shots in the next-gen GPU war

Intel Arc A770 GPU installed in a test bench.

The GPU market is about to start heating up in just a few short months, and that's not just due to AMD and Nvidia. According to a new report, Intel plans to release its highly anticipated, next-gen Arc Battlemage graphics cards sooner than many have expected, and the GPUs might drop at just the perfect time to steal some sales away from AMD and Nvidia.

The tantalizing news comes from a report by ComputerBase. The publication claims that during Embedded World 2024, an event that took place in Germany, Intel's partners implied that Arc Battlemage GPUs might launch before this year's Black Friday. Realistically, this implies that Intel would have to hit the market in early November at the latest, giving its partners and retailers enough time to make the products readily available during the Black Friday shopping craze.

Computing

Nvidia RTX 50-series graphics cards: news, release date, price, and more

RTX 4070 seen from the side.

Nvidia already makes some of the best graphics cards, but it's also not resting on its laurels. Although the RTX 40-series, which has been bolstered by a refresh, is still very recent, Nvidia is also working on its next-gen GPUs from the RTX 50-series.

The release date of RTX 50-series GPUs is still at least a few months away, but various rumors and leaks give us a better idea of what to expect. Here's everything we know about Nvidia's upcoming generation of graphics cards.
RTX 50-series: pricing and release date

Computing

GPU prices are back on the rise again

RTX 4060 Ti sitting next to the RTX 4070.

We haven't had to worry about the prices of some of the best graphics cards for quite some time. With most GPUs sold around their recommended retail price, there are plenty of options for PC builders in need of a new graphics card. However, a new report indicates that we might see an increase in GPU prices, especially on the cards made by Nvidia's add-in board partners (AIBs). Is it time to start worrying about another GPU shortage? Not quite, but it might be better to shop now before it gets worse.

The grim news comes from IT Home, a Chinese tech publication that cites anonymous "industry sources" as it predicts that Nvidia's AIBs are about to raise their prices by up to 10% on average -- and this won't be limited to high-end GPUs along the lines of the RTX 4090. In fact, IT Home reports that the RTX 4070 Super has already received a price increase of about 100 yuan, which equals roughly $14 at the time of this writing. This is a subtle price increase given that the GPU costs $550 to $600, but according to the report, it might just be the beginning.