The September 2025 Steam Hardware Survey reveals a gradual evolution in the gaming PC landscape, with significant declines in legacy configurations like 8GB GPUs and 6-core CPUs, signaling a broader shift toward higher-spec hardware among Steam users. The share of 8GB GPUs has dropped by 1.37% from the previous month to 33.66%, remaining the most common VRAM setup but underscoring growing dissatisfaction with its limitations for modern titles that demand more memory for stable frame rates and reduced optimization needs.
In contrast, 16GB VRAM cards are experiencing the fastest growth, driven by the release of 2025 GPUs such as NVIDIA’s RTX 5060, RTX 5060 Ti, and AMD’s Radeon RX 9060 XT, many of which still cap at 8GB but highlight the market’s push for more capacity. On the GPU front, NVIDIA continues to dominate, with the GeForce RTX 4060 Laptop GPU holding the top spot at nearly 4.9% market share, while the emerging RTX 50 series particularly the RTX 5070 and RTX 5060 climbs the rankings, reflecting early adoption of newer architectures.
Source: Steam (via: videocardz)
Shifting to processors, 6-core CPUs, once the gold standard for mainstream gaming rigs, have tumbled below 30% market share for the first time, a stark indicator of users upgrading to more capable silicon amid rising game complexity. Meanwhile, 8-core CPUs are surging ahead to 25.28% prevalence, aligning with the trend toward multi-threaded workloads that benefit from additional cores. In the vendor rivalry, AMD edges out Intel with a 41.31% share, up 1.15% month-over-month, though both companies face ongoing erosion in overall dominance as consumers hold out for major refreshes—Intel’s Core Ultra 400 “Nova Lake” series isn’t slated until next year, and it lacks a strong counter to AMD’s Ryzen 9000X3D lineup, which leads gaming benchmarks. Despite these shifts, 8GB GPUs and 6-core CPUs still represent about a third of the surveyed systems each, maintaining a hefty footprint in the ecosystem.
The survey’s methodology has also evolved, with Steam reportedly ramping up sampling frequency—sometimes querying users multiple times annually—to enhance representativeness, though some participants note they haven’t been included recently. Overall, these results paint a picture of incremental progress rather than seismic change, as gamers methodically future-proof their setups against increasingly demanding software.
Source: Steam Hardware Survey via Wccftech, videocardz