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Valve's Steam Hardware Survey always makes for interesting reading, and the May 2026 edition has just been published. There's plenty to dig out of the data, but what caught my attention was the surge that AMD graphics cards have enjoyed over the past months, rising from 16.4 percent of the total at the beginning of 2025 to 19.1 percent as we close out spring 2026. For context, Nvidia still holds onto a 72 percent majority, with Intel bringing up the rear at eight percent.
The two most notable AMD current-gen GPUs, the RX 9070 XT and RX 9060 XT, also charted for the first time, at 1.33 percent and 0.72 percent of all respondents. Nvidia still holds the vast majority of the top spots - with the RTX 3060, 4060 Laptop, 4060, 3050 and 5070 all above three percent, in that order - but it's good to see a bit of movement regardless.
Elsewhere, AMD continues to make up ground on Intel in the CPU space, a trend that has been continuing since the release of Ryzen 3000 processors in 2019. It's now 46 percent to AMD and 54 percent to Intel, an eight percent point swing since the start of 2025 (when it was 38 percent to 62 percent). We'd therefore expect the two firms to draw even by around March 2027 - which would be an important market share milestone for the Red Team.
Similarly, eight-core CPUs (eg Ryzen 5800X3D, 7800X3D) are the fastest growing segment, with a 0.53 percent improvement versus April, with six-core (eg Ryzen 5600, 7600, 9600X) and 10-core CPUs (eg Intel 12600K, 13400F, 14400F) both losing around half a percentage point. Four-core and 16-core CPUs also saw marginal gains, with other core counts remaining static.
You can also see the effects of the current RAM pricing debacle, with 16GB systems gaining on 32GB ones, while the percentage of SSDs above 999GB has shrunk by 1.23 percent - with 256GB and 128GB (!!) drives making up most of the difference.
The OS results also make interesting reading, with Windows 11 rebounding against recent Linux gains by around half a percentage point - the scores now sit at 94 percent Windows, two percent macOS and four percent Linux. However, I'm pleased to see my own distro of choice, CachyOS, doubling to reach 0.5 percent, in second place behind SteamOS at 0.9 percent.
What do you make of the latest results? Let me know in the comments below.
[source store.steampowered.com]
Comments 13
Maybe DF will start testing on Radeon?
You can get a 9070XT for 650€, which is only slightly worse in RT (about 10-15%) than a 5070 Ti, which costs 1050€ these days. Add to that that Nvidia drivers have been pretty bad the past 10-12 months, and it is almost a no-brainer pick for a 1440p Desktop if you value your money.
It will be interesting to see how this market share develops over the coming surveys because there have been weird one-time outliers in the past which I assume come down to quirks of the samples Steam takes each month.
That said, it only makes sense that more people choose AMD's 9070 XT at a time when FSR4 has significantly decreased the upsampling gap while offering 5070 Ti performance at 2/3 of the price.
FSR4 is going to be important, but the real fight will come next generation, what does RDNA5/UDNA bring in terms of performance gains, price and how much of an overhead does FSR4 carry on those cards. FSR4 is good, but it is frustrating that it is not as universally included by developers as DLSS is. That will likely change when the PS6 (and to a far lesser extent Helix) roll out and devs will be using it by default on the consoles.
@Mycrosys - I've never really had any allegance to NVIDIA but that is how things panned out for me.
The reason is simple: NVIDIA lead in technical innovations whereas AMD merely follow in my humble view, being typically 2-3 years behind. That made it near impossible for me to switch from NVIDIA when I had access to technologies like PhysX, DLSS, frame generation and ray/path-tracing.
Sure, AMD has caught up a bit but only now do they have something close to competing with DLSS after years of FSR2/3 and its sub-par upscaling. NVIDIA still offer a more compelling package though in my opinion due to the ease at which DLSS can be upgraded in older games. AMD currently only allows games that use FSR3.1, I believe, to be upgraded to FSR4 and then it is currently only on the latest GPUs. Yes, FSR4 for older cards is coming but it has taken so long that it comes across more like an afterthought. Also, AMD do not have multi-frame gen yet but I expect that will come along in a year or two.
NVIDIA graphics cards are expensive but in my experience they are worth it plus they have higher end offerings and that is why I will continue to buy them... for as long as I can afford to buy them!
@Darren1967 You are correct in your assumption that AMD is about 2 years behind Nvidia; however, Nvidia's drivers have gotten worse over the past year, and their technology has been a bit stagnant as well.
While I admit that Frame Generation is finally at a point where it is usable with DLSS 4.0, I don't think Radeon is far behind.
Sure, if you want the best of the best, you need to stick to Nvidia, but not everybody can pay 1500€ for a GPU when you look at RAM hitting 4 digits as well in the foreseeable future. I myself am running a 4090, and I think the decision to buy it when it was discounted to 1650€ was on the same level of good decision-making as me buying my 1080 GTX back in the day, but looking at today's market, the 9070XT is a really good deal that will be more than enough for most gamers.
How are AMD CPU’s still behind Intel, given AMD have been making much better gaming CPU’s for years now? I don’t understand that. Are most steam players using custom built PC’s, and choosing Intel? Or is it something else. There seems to be no reason not to go with an AMD one for the past several years now
@Ed64 a lot of Steam users are on laptops, they will be using a standard home desktops, 5.6% or users are on Intel integrated graphics, that is more than all the RTX xx80 and xx90 (plus their Ti/super variants) combined, who will likely be on higher end CPUs. AMD CPUs are great for gaming, but for general usage Intel and AMD are roughly on par and for high end compute consumer Intel CPUs generally have more cores and are a better option, even if Threadripper is amazing for workstations.
@Mycrosys Just for general information, in the UK, the 9070 XT is currently (in mid-June 2026) the same price you have (£560 / around €650), whilst the 5070 Ti here is £830 (around €960) (if you can find stock). You get 007 First Light included with the 5070 Ti.
@kingmustard You are right; I should have pointed out that I did not count any promotional extra games, but you could sell that code to recoup 50€, I guess. As for the price of the cards, the first card I found for the 9070 XT at that price was a Gigabyte, so I compared it to the price of a Gigabyte 5070 Ti (which is 1050€ on Amazon in my area). I guess if you go for a no-name brand, you can get an even better deal for the 5070Ti, but I wanted a comparable product, so I chose the same brand.
So yes, if you want to go with any brand and sell the game it comes with, you can probably go down to as low as 900€ for a 5070ti. Those 2 cards are about equal in rasterization, and the Nvidia is roughly 12% faster in RT. You still have to decide if those 12% more frames with RT are worth 250€ for you. I'd say even 12% overall performance would be a hard sell for an overall 40% more money, but of course that is for you to decide.
@Mycrosys I got Starfield free with my 7800X3D and, I cannot remember why now as it was almost three years ago, but it was not possible to resell it. I imagine NVIDIA would do the same.
@kingmustard That depends. You actually CAN resell it, but the buyer must also have the hardware that would be eligible (even if the purchase was made outside the promotion time frame).
The redemption process checks for the appropriate Hardware, e.g., if you have a CPU in your case or a GPU in the case of a promotion for a GPU that fits the game of the redeem code.
You can, however, still sell it to someone who bought that hardware at an earlier time and is no longer eligible, but wants the game. For example, if you bought a 5070Ti now and are eligible, and your friend bought one a year ago and is no longer eligible, the code should still work for him/her because he/she has the correct hardware - unless he/she had another promotion code redeemed for that specific device (then it is locked out; one promotion code per device ID). I admit, it would make reselling quite a bit more complicated, but it's not impossible.
Either way, depending on whether you can resell it or not, it is 900€-950€. It's a roughly 40% cost increase over a 9070XT.
@Ed64 I got a pre build several years ago which was intel and the realities are it’s earlier to stick with what I’ve got rather than switching the motherboard and CPU to AMD. I know it’s not a huge deal but it’s much more convenient switching the GPU, RAM, or SSDs rather than pulling it all out.
And to totally purchase a new pre build it’s considerably more expensive now than it was several years ago. So if it’s good enough people are probably just keeping what they have and for me it’s good enough. If you are wondering I’ve got a 13700k with 4080.
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