Steam survey shows most gamers rock an Intel quad-core CPU and Nvidia GPU

Valve has published its Steam hardware and software survey for the month of June and in doing so, we have a snapshot of what many gamers are running these days. Based on the Steam data alone, the typical gamer is sporting a system with a quad-core CPU from Intel, an Nvidia graphics card, and Windows 10.

In the CPU category, more than half of all Steam users are running a processor with four physical cores. Steam's audit also shows that around 81 percent of its users have Intel inside, versus 19 percent who are running an AMD processor. Back in February, the split was slightly closer with AMD accounting for nearly 22 percent of all systems accessing Steam.

Given how Intel has been dominating the landscape for several years now, it is not surprising to see the majority of gamers shunning AMD. However, we suspect the gap will close in the coming months now that Ryzen is here and looking relatively good (though still not as good as Intel for gaming), and Threadripper on the horizon.

When switching focus to the GPU category, it's Nvidia that stands on top. Nearly two-thirds of all Steam users are running an Nvidia graphics card, versus 20 percent who have an AMD graphics card, which is just a little higher than the 15.54 percent who are running integrated graphics from Intel.

The GeForce GTX 1060 seems to be the most popular option (6.29 percent) among DirectX 12 graphics cards, followed by the GeForce GTX 750 Ti (5.88 percent) and 17 other Nvidia cards that own the top 19 spots. Intel's HD Graphics 5500 falls into the number 20 slot before AMD finally makes an appearance with its Radeon HD 7700 series.

As for the OS, over 53 percent of Steam users are now on Windows 10, almost all of which are running the 64-bit version. That is up slightly from 50.82 percent in February.

Meanwhile, Windows 7 is holding strong with more than a third of Steam users clinging to the previous generation OS.

Do these stats coincide with what you're running at home on your primary gaming desktop or are you running something different? Let us know in the comments section what your setup looks like.

Paul Lilly

Paul has been playing PC games and raking his knuckles on computer hardware since the Commodore 64. He does not have any tattoos, but thinks it would be cool to get one that reads LOAD"*",8,1. In his off time, he rides motorcycles and wrestles alligators (only one of those is true).

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