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This time last month, we saw the RTX 5070 become the most popular GPU on Steam, but its reign hasn’t lasted too long. With November arriving, that means a new set of data to delve into in Valve’s monthly Steam Software & Hardware Survey. Focusing on the graphics card results, we can see the ever-popular RTX 3060 back on top, albeit sharing the exact same market share as the RTX 5070 (3.78%).
However, it’s interesting to point out that the majority of RTX 50 series GPUs have dropped in the October 2026 results. On the flip side, 50 series-based laptops do not face the same issue, so why are the desktop cards affected? Well, there seems to be a good explanation for this, and it has to do with the cyber café culture in Asia and a recent surge in activity over holiday periods.
RTX 50 series usage in September and October 2026
According to results from September (published at the very start of October), the RTX 5070 was by far the most popular GPU, trailed by the RTX 5060 and RTX 5060 Ti. These mid-range cards are incredibly popular in Asian internet cafés, with holidays such as Japan’s Silver Week and China’s Mid-Autumn Festival helping drive up usage during the mid-to-late September period.
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| GPU | September 2026 | October 2026 | Difference (pp) |
|---|---|---|---|
| RTX 3060 | 3.66% | 3.78% | +0.12 |
| RTX 5070 | 6.15% | 3.78% | -2.37 |
| RTX 5060 | 4.40% | 3.15% | -1.25 |
| RTX 5060 Ti | 4.06% | 2.70% | -1.36 |
| RTX 5070 Ti | 1.87% | 1.91% | +0.04 |
| RTX 5080 | 1.98% | 1.78% | -0.20 |
| RTX 5070 Laptop GPU | 0.64% | 0.69% | +0.05 |
| RTX 5090 | 0.40% | 0.43% | +0.03 |
| RTX 5070 Ti Laptop GPU | 0.41% | 0.42% | +0.01 |
| RTX 5050 Laptop GPU | 0.39% | 0.48% | +0.09 |
| RTX 5050 | 0.23% | 0.26% | +0.03 |
Valve hasn’t officially addressed why there’s a sudden drop-off, but the general consensus seems to be anomalies caused by a boost in internet café activity. For reference, in the Language section of the survey, Simplified Chinese usage has notably dropped by 9.41% this month. In an environment where many different users are logging into the same machine, this means an influx of users that may opt in to the Steam survey, despite likely not owning the hardware themselves.
On the AMD side of things, Team Red’s flagship RX 9070 XT remains the top (named) Radeon GPU in the Steam survey, jumping from 1.42% to 1.59% over the last month. Typically speaking, RTX hardware is much more popular in the pre-built systems bought in bulk by cybercafés around the world. And as ever, the generic “AMD Radeon Graphics” entry still occupies the majority of AMD GPU data.
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