The newest Steam {Hardware} Survey (SHS) is out, and as standard it supplies perception into the dynamics of the PC {hardware} configurations favored by players. What caught our eye this month was the spectacular surge in Nvidia GeForce RTX 3060 / 3060 Cellular utilization, one of many finest graphics playing cards. Added collectively, these 3060 class Ampere GPUs grow to be the one double digit proportion ranked entry within the survey. It is debatable whether or not such a merge is ‘justified’ or not, however the earlier two GeForce generations don’t separate out the desktop and cellular GPUs so far as the SHS is anxious.
Nvidia’s GeForce GTX 1060 has grow to be one thing of a legend for mainstream gaming. It has each proper to its success, because it was priced competitively, supplied an awesome gen-to-gen efficiency uplift, and may nonetheless be used for PC gaming enjoyable at present. Satirically, Staff Inexperienced may be trying ahead to the demise of the GTX 1060 greater than its rivals, because it continues to border fashionable PC gaming by way of options that aren’t supported by ye olde Pascal structure — ray tracing, DLSS, and so forth.
It is no shock the GeForce GTX 1060 continues to be holding onto the official high spot within the SHS GPU tables with 7.24% (DX12 PC gaming figures derived from the survey will likely be used all through this text). It is even made sporadic positive aspects over the previous couple of months — maybe playing cards have been bought by upgraders and are being subsequently loved in ‘new’ entry degree programs.
Once more, keep in mind that there is solely a single entry for “GTX 1060” within the charts. That aggregates GTX 1060 6GB and 3GB desktop variants, plus any laptop computer fashions as effectively. There isn’t any query that the 1060 was a highly regarded card again in its heyday, although it is much less so now.
If we merge the GeForce RTX 3060 and 3060 Cellular into one, utilizing Steam’s knowledge, it seems the unified RTX 3060 entity eclipsed the GTX 1060 between Might and June of this 12 months. Within the latest September knowledge, the RTX 3060 merchandise are very clearly within the lead with a complete of 10.53%, the one GPU to make double digits within the desk.
At the same time as separate line objects, the GeForce RTX 3060 and 3060 Laptop computer GPUs are sixth and fifth, respectively. If we didn’t ‘assist’ the RTX 3060 with the merged figures, they might nonetheless simply make it to first and second place on their very own steam (sorry) someday in 2023. Additionally observe that there isn’t any launch window in sight for the RTX 4070 or beneath. Nvidia’s elevated pricing would possibly imply one thing just like the RTX 4050 might find yourself as one of the best promoting Ada Lovelace era GPU.
Elsewhere within the Steam survey, hexacore CPUs have very firmly cemented their lead over current months. In OS utilization, Home windows 11 continues to look robust and will definitely break the 25% milestone earlier than the following survey is revealed.
Lastly, there was some VR headset controversy. Add VR famous that Valve has needed to step in and proper the VR headset market share info, because it had some ‘excessive’ figures for the Oculus Quest 2 (now Meta Quest 2) and ‘Different’ headsets. Apparently, there may be some misreporting on this section as a result of {hardware} detection methodology.
And that’s cause sufficient to query all Steam {hardware} survey outcomes. We have lengthy puzzled whether or not Valve makes use of correct statistical strategies (ie, totally random sampling), reasonably than searching for different developments in {hardware} use. Sadly, Valve by no means says exactly what it is doing, although it stays one of the best publicly accessible perception into PC {hardware}.
