December Steam survey: AMD loses ground to Intel for first time in months, RTX 3060 sees biggest gains

The big picture: Most of the tech news cycle is focused on CES 2022 right now, naturally, but the start of a new month marks another occasion: the latest Steam Hardware and Software survey results. December was a bumper month for Nvidia’s Ampere line, with the RTX 3060 gaining more users than any other card while the Ti variant and the RTX 3070 experienced significant gains, too. We also saw a rare drop in the CPU share for AMD, which could be explained by the popularity currently being enjoyed by Intel’s latest Alder Lake CPUs.

During December, the number of survey participants with an RTX 3060 in their PCs increased by 0.57%, more than any other GPU on the list. The Ti version of that card was up 0.30%, while the RTX 3070 saw gains of 14%. It seems some people can find/afford Nvidia’s most recent graphics cards, though they may be buying them from eBay.

Lots of people bought cards over the holidays, it seems

As for AMD, the Radeon RX 6700 remains the only RDNA 2 card on the main GPU list. It’s found in 0.19% of participants’ PCs, which is actually down 0.01% month-over-month.

The increase in RTX 3000-series users means the RTX 3060 is now the 12th most-popular card on the list with a 1.87% share, while the RTX 3070 (1.94%) remains the top Ampere product in 11th place. The GTX 1060 stays in the number one position, but the fourth-place RTX 2060, which was up 0.40% last month, continues to make great strides.

The most popular GPUs. Will the GTX 1060 ever lose its crown?

The processor section of the survey saw a changing trend in December. Having seen its user share increase every month since August, AMD fell by 0.82% over the last four weeks. Could this be the Alder Lake effect? Intel’s latest CPUs have been receiving plenty of rave reviews, and they were likely on many PC fans’ Christmas wishlists.

Elsewhere, Windows 11 continued to chip away at Windows 10’s lead in the OS section, increasing its share by 1.87% to 10.15%. The Oculus quest cemented its dominant position at the top of the VR Headset chart with a 3.30% gain, and most users have 8GB of VRAM in their graphics cards.

Intel, Nvidia, and AMD are all holding their respective CES 2022 events today, where we’re expecting to see new CPUs and GPUs announced that could shake up the Steam survey over the next few months. But right now, it’s Intel and Nvidia who will be smiling.