Steam Hardware Survey shows AMD CPUs are more more popular than they've ever been in 17 years

First reported by Tom's Hardware, The July Steam Hardware Survey results are in, and it's more bad news for Intel, which saw a 0.75% drop last month while AMD gained 0.74% of Steam users. This shift, which has been a trend for years now, puts Intel CPUs at 59.5%, edging perilously close to losing first place. Meanwhile, AMD CPU adoption on Steam is up to 40.39%, the highest it's ever been, putting it within spitting distance of taking the lead over Intel.

Looking back through Steam's processor usage details through the years on the Wayback Machine, things have never looked better for AMD. The manufacturer cracked 30% share for the first time in more than a decade back in May 2021, and has been steadily gaining (occasionally plateauing) ever since the introduction of AMD's game changer Ryzen architecture in 2017.

It still took a long time to get here⁠—one year after Ryzen launched, in March 2018, AMD had only just acquired more than 10% of the share of Steam users surveyed. The last time the numbers were anywhere close to this good for AMD was all the way back in November 2008, the first Steam Hardware Survey we have on record. Back then, AMD sat at 37.95% compared to Intel's 62.04%, a balance that would vastly shift in Intel's favor over much of the next decade.

A more granular look at the numbers shows even more good news for AMD. While the hardware survey doesn't report the specific CPU models gamers are using, it does show the CPU speeds, which reveals where the shift toward AMD may be happening. As of July, the largest category of Intel CPUs are in the 2.3 GHz to 2.69 GHz range, accounting for 22% of Intel Steam users. In comparison, the top category for AMD chips is the 3.7GHz and above range, which includes high-end CPUs like those in the X3D series.

This is worth noting because the most popular CPU category for Intel is on the decline on Steam while AMD's most popular category is seeing increasing adoption. That data could suggest that gamers are specifically switching to AMD for its high-end chips while leaving behind Intel's more mid-range offerings.

That's just on Windows, though. On the Linux side of things, Intel is actually gaining on AMD, but still has a long way to go to catch up to AMD's lead. High-speed CPUs are the top category for both brands on Linux, but Linux usage on Steam is still very low at just 2.89% (although it's on the rise).

Operating systems aside, one thing is clear: Intel's dominance in the PC gaming market is slipping—even its chip foundry business might be in trouble. For one reason or another, gamers are abandoning Team Blue despite decades of popularity for Intel. AMD's attempts to offer a stronger price to performance ratio are clearly paying off. If they can keep it up, they might just dethrone Intel in a few years' time. This also shows that market dominance is never guaranteed, something GPU giant Nvidia would do well to consider.