December Steam Survey Numbers Points Towards Slow Death of the Quad Core Gaming CPU

This might not come as a real surprise, but in the latest Steam hardware survey, we’re seeing clear declines of quad core CPUs, the category that some people have been claiming for the longest of times, is all you need for a gaming PC. Among the Windows systems, the decline is over a percent, with six core CPU gaining well over a percent, although the numbers vary quite a bit over the past five months, which is all the history Valve provides. The decline is also clear on OSX, although it’s not quite as big percentage wise, but here the biggest growth is in the eight and 10 core segments, most likely due to Apple’s introduction of its own M1 variants of CPUs. Only in the Linux segment are the dual and quad core CPU segments increasing, which suggest that some of these systems might be repurposed Windows machines.

The six core and higher CPU segment now holds over 50 percent share in the Steam survey and eight core CPUs are also up somewhat for Windows machines. Of these CPUs, Intel is holding a 69.27 percent share, up 0.82 percent compared to November, although still down over 3.5 percent since August versus AMD. Intel also gained 0.33 percent of Linux users and is back over 60 percent for the first time since August. On the OSX side of things, Apple seems to have gained a 27.97 percent share of Steam users surveyed, up from 6.05 percent just a month earlier. There has also been a 1.2 percent increase in Steam users surveyed that have 16 GB of RAM, suggesting that the low RAM prices in 2021 has made people upgrade their systems. Over 47 percent of all Steam users that were surveyed appear to have at least 16 GB of RAM in their systems.

To no one’s surprise, the most popular GPU is the GeForce GTX 1060, which holds a 7.92 percent share, up 0.34 percent since November. Nvidia is without a doubt the most popular choice among Steam users with a 76.83 percent share, with AMD in a slight decline in December with 14.45 percent, with Intel also in a slight decline at 8.51 percent. Apple has a mere 0.77 percent of the total GPU’s surveyed, placing them in the other category. This simply suggests that not a lot of Steam users own one of the new Macs or have participated in the survey so far. Among VR headsets the Oculus Quest 2 keeps gaining market share and now holds a 39.62 percent market share among the surveyed Steam users, up 3.3 percent since November. That said, VR headsets are still not all that particularly popular, as only 1.93 percent of Steam users that responded to the survey have one, although it’s still a slight increase since the previous month. A quick look at monitors suggest that 1440p is slowly gaining popularity, with an increase of 0.79 percent, but 1080p still holds a solid 67.12 percent in the Steam survey.