Valve’s latest Steam hardware survey paints a clear picture. Yes, Nvidia holds a commanding lead in the graphics card market. With over 76% market share, Nvidia leaves AMD trailing in the dust. But here’s the surprising twist. Nvidia’s most expensive offering, the RTX 4090, boasts higher ownership on Steam than any single AMD Radeon GPU. This is a surprising outcome given the extreme price point of Nvidia’s top-of-the-range product.

Survey results

While a niche product due to its hefty price tag, 0.99% of Steam users reported owning an RTX 4090 on its latest survey, making it the true “GPU of the 1%.” While this number may not seem very big on the surface, it holds some weight compared to other offerings. For example, Nvidia’s RTX 3060 reigns supreme as the most popular GPU on Steam, with a healthy 6.01% ownership rate among users. In stark contrast, AMD’s most popular offering, the aging RX 580, sits at just 0.91%. Even AMD’s flagship RX 7900 XTX musters a mere 0.41% user base, a far cry from Nvidia’s high-end dominance. This trend extends to Nvidia’s RTX 4080 and 4080 Super, both boasting significantly higher ownership compared to their AMD counterparts. These figures highlight the undeniable popularity of Nvidia’s high-end RTX lineup amongst Steam users.

Hope for AMD CPUs

However, there’s a silver lining for AMD. One of their more popular entries on Steam isn’t a traditional GPU – it’s the “AMD Custom GPU 0405” powering the ever-popular Valve Steam Deck. This built-in graphics solution holds a 0.80% market share, surpassing Nvidia’s RTX 4050 laptop GPU and AMD’s RX 6600. This data confirms the strong showing of Valve’s handheld gaming PC.

Shifting gears, the CPU landscape on Steam reveals a different story. Here, AMD enjoys a more prominent position, powering 34.64% of Steam user machines. This dominance aligns with the overall trend of users favoring processors with higher core counts – over 70% of Steam users boast CPUs with at least 6 cores. Finally, memory trends showcase a preference for increased RAM capacity. Nearly half (47.08%) of Steam users have 16GB of RAM, with a significant chunk (28.72%) opting for an even more generous 32GB.

The full picture

Valve’s Steam survey paints a clear picture of the GPU and CPU landscape right now. Nvidia holds a commanding lead in the GPU market with over 76% share, with their dominance extending even to high-end cards like the RTX 4090. While AMD trails in GPUs, they hold a stronger position in CPUs, powering over a third of Steam machines. The survey also reveals a rising preference for CPUs with more cores and increased RAM usage among gamers – something to look out for more in the future.

About the Author

Tom Valentine

Tom is a tech writer with a detailed view on ensuring the best buying advice, most useful information, and latest news makes its way into PC Guide's articles.