Valve's Steam user survey has been updated, and boy, do the results make for interesting reading.
The rapid pace of hardware progression over the last six months is reflected in the new statistics.
First up: processors. AMD has tightened the gap on Intel even further, with 49.6% of gamers using AMD chips and 50.4% using Intel. Intel has suffered a small hit from the last survey, suggesting that either Intel gamers are getting fed up of bad performance on Steam games, or that they're upgrading their boxes to AMD!
When it comes to graphics overall, NVIDIA now has the lion's share of the demographic with 51.3%. ATI has 40.6%, with Intel integrated making up the rest. However, how those graphics cards split down is more interesting.
When you're talking about 'new' cards, it's clear that NVIDIA's 6-series has done incredibly well here. Last time around, the 6800 was the most popular 'new' card. That's now been bumped down into second place by the 6600, which has proven itself as the mid-range gamer's best friend. The 6600 is now used, unbelievably, by 10% of all Steam gamers, making it far and away the most popular card. The highest ranking ATI card overall is the 9600, which is now an old, old card.
NVIDIA's dominance of the Shader Model 3 space is underlined by the fact that the 7800 accounts for 18% of all SM3 gamers, whereas the X1800 and X1900 combined only muster up 2.3%.
In terms of system RAM, 512MB appears to still be the sweetspot, with figures not having moved much since last time. There are now a couple more people running 1GB, but it seems the move to 1GB is going slowly, with more gamers using 128MB than 1GB. Those damn CS1.6 players, huh?
All in all, some great stuff here. What do you make of the stats? Go and read them for yourself then come back and let us know what you think over in the forums.
The rapid pace of hardware progression over the last six months is reflected in the new statistics.
First up: processors. AMD has tightened the gap on Intel even further, with 49.6% of gamers using AMD chips and 50.4% using Intel. Intel has suffered a small hit from the last survey, suggesting that either Intel gamers are getting fed up of bad performance on Steam games, or that they're upgrading their boxes to AMD!
When it comes to graphics overall, NVIDIA now has the lion's share of the demographic with 51.3%. ATI has 40.6%, with Intel integrated making up the rest. However, how those graphics cards split down is more interesting.
When you're talking about 'new' cards, it's clear that NVIDIA's 6-series has done incredibly well here. Last time around, the 6800 was the most popular 'new' card. That's now been bumped down into second place by the 6600, which has proven itself as the mid-range gamer's best friend. The 6600 is now used, unbelievably, by 10% of all Steam gamers, making it far and away the most popular card. The highest ranking ATI card overall is the 9600, which is now an old, old card.
NVIDIA's dominance of the Shader Model 3 space is underlined by the fact that the 7800 accounts for 18% of all SM3 gamers, whereas the X1800 and X1900 combined only muster up 2.3%.
In terms of system RAM, 512MB appears to still be the sweetspot, with figures not having moved much since last time. There are now a couple more people running 1GB, but it seems the move to 1GB is going slowly, with more gamers using 128MB than 1GB. Those damn CS1.6 players, huh?
All in all, some great stuff here. What do you make of the stats? Go and read them for yourself then come back and let us know what you think over in the forums.
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