Steam’s latest Hardware Survey has highlighted the fundamental shifts in the mainstream PC market. According to the September report, gamers’ hardware preferences are rapidly evolving: graphics cards with 8GB of VRAM are in decline, while NVIDIA’s new series and Windows 11 are gaining in popularity by a wide margin.

RTX 50 Series Debuts in Steam Survey

NVIDIA’s GeForce RTX 4060 Laptop GPU continues to be the most popular graphics card among Steam users, maintaining its months-long lead. It has solidified its top spot, increasing its total share to 4.84%.

However, the real excitement in the market lies with the RTX 50-series cards. These new-generation cards, particularly the RTX 5070 and RTX 5060 series, have seen significant increases in their share. The RTX 5070, the most popular 50-series card, has rapidly reached a share of 1.69%. Following this, the RTX 5060 (1.13%), RTX 5070 Ti (0.91%), and RTX 5060 Ti (0.89%) also gained significant momentum. On the mobile side, the rise of the RTX 5060 laptop GPU is notable; this card is expected to replace the RTX 4060 in the near future.

The most striking result of the survey was the decline in VRAM capacity. The popularity of GPUs with 8GB of VRAM saw a significant drop of 1.37% compared to August. While still the most common configuration at 33.66%, gamers are now turning to more future-proof solutions.

GPUs with 16GB of VRAM saw the largest increase in market share (0.72%), bringing their total share to 7.52%. This clearly indicates that gamers are gradually moving away from 8GB in response to the increasing memory demands of modern games. The market appears to be skipping the 12GB intermediate configuration and moving directly to 16GB.

With Microsoft ending support for Windows 10 less than two weeks away, users are making a mass transition to Windows 11. As of September, Windows 11 saw a solid 2.90% increase compared to August, increasing its market share to 66.08%. Windows 11 has become the preferred choice for nearly two-thirds of Steam gamers.

A significant shift is also evident in the processor market. Six-core processors, which had long held the top spot, saw their market share drop below 30% for the first time. During the same period, eight-core processors saw a steady rise, reaching 25.28% market share (up 0.87% from August). With increasing gaming and multitasking demands, eight-core SKUs are expected to become the most popular core count very soon. Six-core processors are also gaining momentum, becoming one of the biggest market share gainers of the month.