Steam Hardware Survey Highlights Key PC Gaming Trends
Valve's Steam platform has a regular look at its users' settings, and the latest monthly survey just wrapped up, showing some interesting trends. It seems the digital world is shifting, especially when it comes to operating systems and the graphics cards our favorite games are utilizing.
The Rise of Windows 11 and the Slow Decline of an Old Favorite
The operating system news is Windows 11's continued ascendancy. In April, its share of the gamer pie grew by a significant 2.5%, now sitting at a comfortable 57.84% of PC respondents. And what about the ever-reliable Windows 10. Well, its popularity is fading quietly, now on 38.09% of machines. It seems many are looking to the future, perhaps because official support for Windows 10 will end in October 2025.
And what about the alternatives. Linux players are a devoted but tiny 2.27% (a drop of 0.06%), while mac gamers stand at 1.62% (an increase of 0.04%).
A New Champion in the Graphics Card Arena
The hardware graphs were also disturbed a little. For a while, the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3060 was the "people's champ." Well, it's been dethroned. The laptop version of the RTX 4060 is now in the top spot, with 4.8% of gaming machines surveyed. The desktop version of the RTX 4060 is closing in on it, in third place at 4.35%.
What Else Are Gamers Using. The Common Specs
Other than the GPU and OS, the survey gives us a snapshot of typical gaming setups:
- Memory Matters: A whopping 16GB of RAM appears to be the sweet spot for most, with 43.86% of gamers rocking this amount.
- Core Counts: Six-core CPUs remain popular, employed in 30.26% of systems.
- Display Dominance: The ancient 1080p resolution still reigns supreme, with 55.27% of gamers playing on a Full HD screen.
It's always exciting to watch these trends unfold and provide us with an increasingly brighter insight into the hardware really driving the PC gaming experience today.
