AMD continues its rapid rise in Steam’s hardware survey rankings

Valve has published its Steam Hardware Survey for November, revealing that AMD continues to increase its share in the gaming CPU sector. In August, AMD achieved over 40% market share for the first time. This month, AMD's market share has risen to 43.56%, an increase of 0.52%.

In 2022, Intel held a commanding 77% market share among Steam users. Currently, Intel's market share stands at 56.44%. Should Intel continue to experience a decline at this pace, AMD is on track to capture more than 50% of the CPU market among Steam users by 2026.

Intel’s substantial CPU share on Steam is largely due to its legacy user base. Many PC gamers are not regular upgraders, which explains why changes in market share can be slow to reflect in Steam’s hardware survey. If the current patterns persist, an increasing number of Intel-powered PCs will be phased out, while more PCs equipped with AMD processors will be constructed to take their place. Without a resurgence in the PC gaming sector, Intel risks losing its position to AMD as the leading CPU provider on Steam.

AMD's swift rise in CPU market share indicates that a majority of new gaming PCs are being equipped with AMD processors. Steam’s Hardware Survey aims to accurately represent the entire Steam user base, encompassing both new and older gaming systems. The rapid growth in AMD's market share suggests that many gamers are replacing aging Intel-based systems with newer AMD setups. If Intel wishes to halt this downward trend, it must find ways to attract gamers to invest in Intel-based systems.

Intel's challenges in the PC gaming arena can be attributed to its underwhelming Arrow Lake CPU line. Today's Arrow Lake CPUs from Intel often lag behind their previous-generation Raptor Lake models in performance. As a result, there is little motivation for gamers to purchase new Intel processors for their rigs.

Conversely, AMD has made significant strides in performance with its Ryzen 7 9800X3D gaming CPU, establishing performance supremacy for AMD - at least within the gaming sector. As always, for the latest news on hardware launches and industry developments, be sure to follow our dedicated hardware coverage.