Steam Hardware Survey reveals most popular RTX 40-series GPU

Valve’s latest Steam Hardware Survey has revealed the most popular RTX 40-series GPU, and it might not be what you expect.

Steam’s Hardware Surveys is an indispensable resource for seeing just how the PC gaming market shifts from month to month, and December’s survey has just been released, allowing us to see the biggest movers and shakers in the market.

This time, we’re seeing a maturation of current-gen parts, which are now making more of a considerable dent in the overall PC gaming market, according to Steam. The current king of GPUs remains the RTX 3060, which has been available for several years, but in the case of the RTX 40-series, an entirely new class of GPU is leading the pack.

The RTX 4070 is the most popular desktop graphics card from the RTX-40 series, according to Valve. Penetrating 1.58% of the overall market, it might not be quite as dominant as the RTX 4060 laptop GPU, which sits at 2.03%, but the fact that it’s the 4070, not the 4060 is incredibly telling about consumer habits.

The RTX 4060 doesn’t bring forth a gigantic leap in pure rasterization performance against the RTX 3060, which could be a part of the reason why the desktop 4070 is much more popular than the 4060. It’s also worth noting that the desktop RTX 4060 is also slightly newer, meaning that there’s been less time for the GPU to reach the hands of consumers.

Intel gains on AMD

AMD

Intel has continued its run against AMD in the latest hardware survey, possibly owing to the launch of new CPUs in late 2023, which are making their way into several devices. With Core Ultra now on the table, we’re expecting this gap to widen slightly.

However, AMD is currently poised to launch its new APUs, which come sporting RDNA 3 graphics. But, don’t expect these new processors to move the needle in terms of gaming performance, as the chips begin to arrive in several other handhelds.

How AMD responds to the slight loss in market share will be interesting, as the company is known for pulling out all the stops when they are up against stiff competition.