So good news if you own AMD stock: according to the latest Steam
hardware survey, AMD now has above 40% of the user market.*
Now, that might not sound like much -it's not even half!- and Intel undoubtedly is still the market leader... but it's a very impressive
showing from a company that had been lagging significantly behind just
a few years ago. These stats aren't the whole story of course -- the
Steam hardware survey is mostly a survey of gaming PCs--, so all those billions of Intel-powered office computers aren't included, and the
actual total percentage is probably even more tilted in favor of
Intel. But it's nonetheless promising news for AMD, which has chased a multi-tiered approach, chasing after not only low-powered mobile but
also high-end gaming consumers.
It's not quite as impressive on the GPU-side of things. There's some
definite improvement there too (17% of the market, up from 11% a few
months ago) but Nvidia still rules the roost there, and Intel's own
ARC gpus are a closer competitor to AMD, at least in marketshare.
Still, given how AMD is actively trying to satisfy gamer needs in both markets, it looks like this tactic is succeeding. Nvidia has more or
stopped caring about anybody except crypto- and AI-bros; the fact that
their chipsets still work with games seems almost incidental to them.
And Intel is just a mess; their CPUs are still powerful and
ubiquitous, but they're increasingly falling behind the technology
curve (at least with their CPUs. ARC isn't too bad).
I don't doubt that the rise of handheld PCs -- SteamDeck and its
various clones-- has helped AMD's numbers; they all use AMD chipsets,
and they're increasingly popular. Sony and Microsoft are also
considering using AMD chipsets in their next Playstation/XBox
iterations. All this will make publishers far more likely to
prioritize AMD compatibility... which in turn will only help further
AMD's rise.
Stuck on Intel/Nvidia like I am, I can't say I'm entirely thrilled
with this, of course, but I also recognize that the industry
desperately needs a shake-up. It needs the competition to make the
current leaders focus on developing products that people actually
want, and not just shitting out the next lame iteration of current-gen technology. I'd still be hesitant to get an AMD video-card, but my
next PC? Unless AMD does something almost criminally stupid, it will
most likely rock an AMD CPU.
--- --- --- --- ---
* reported here
https://www.pcgamesn.com/steam/hardware-survey-july-2025
Big nope.
Trump is apparently slapping a 100% tariff on non US made (AMD=Taiwan
mostly) chips.
So it was probably kinda fucking stupid on AMD's part to chase
specific game optimizations to please benchmarks, meanwhile Intel
quietly released the Core Ultra which performs better in
*productivity* software. Short-term strategies like that never work
out.
Developers use *productivity* software like Visual Studio to CREATE
games. Which would you use if you were creating games? Re-train your
brain to imagine yourself higher on the food chain Spalls, as a
PRODUCER of games rather than a sheeple-for-the-peeple player of
games.
So most game developers have been buying Intel since the Core Ultra
series came out.
Seems unlikely that they will care how games run on lower cost chips >optimized for very specific game benchmarks (but lower performing in
real benchmarks) after the tariffs hit their mark.
Stuck on Intel/Nvidia like I am, I can't say I'm entirely thrilled
with this, of course, but I also recognize that the industry
desperately needs a shake-up. It needs the competition to make the
current leaders focus on developing products that people actually
want, and not just shitting out the next lame iteration of current-gen >technology. I'd still be hesitant to get an AMD video-card, but my
next PC? Unless AMD does something almost criminally stupid, it will
most likely rock an AMD CPU.
Sysop: | DaiTengu |
---|---|
Location: | Appleton, WI |
Users: | 1,064 |
Nodes: | 10 (0 / 10) |
Uptime: | 146:24:28 |
Calls: | 13,691 |
Calls today: | 1 |
Files: | 186,935 |
D/L today: |
23 files (2,078K bytes) |
Messages: | 2,410,869 |