Nvidia’s RTX 3060 GPU has taken the lead as the most popular GPU in the latest Steam Hardware Survey for October, with 7.46% of PC gamers using it. This marks a significant increase from July, when the percentage share was 5.88%, and is two years after the launch of Nvidia’s RTX 4000 series laptop GPUs.
The RTX 3060 has been consistently popular among Steam users despite being an older GPU model, while the RTX 4000 desktop series has not gained significant traction among gamers. The high-end graphics cards from the RTX 4000 series are nowhere near the top ten in terms of popularity, with the 1080p resolution being the most popular game setting for Steam users.
The pricing of the RTX 4000 series GPUs is believed to be a major factor in their relatively low popularity. The high-end models, such as the RTX 4080 and 4090, are priced significantly higher than the RTX 3060, making them less appealing to gamers on a budget.
This trend suggests that Nvidia’s upscaling technology, such as Frame Generation and DLSS 3, may not be as necessary for PC gamers at lower resolutions like 1080p. The RTX 3000 series GPUs still have a significant market share, indicating that they have plenty of life left in them. For Nvidia, this is not ideal news, as it would prefer its customers to upgrade to newer GPUs.
The Steam Hardware Survey results provide valuable insights into the landscape of PC gaming hardware and are not definitive, but they offer a general idea of popular GPU models among gamers who use Steam.
Source: https://www.techradar.com/computing/gpu/forget-the-rtx-4000-series-the-rtx-3060-is-the-gift-that-keeps-on-giving-as-nvidias-gpu-tops-steam-hardware-survey-again-for-october