AMD Ryzen Processors Surge In Gaming Rig Popularity According To Steam Hardware Survey

It's almost starting to feel like a distant memory when, for so many years, AMD relegated itself to the mid-range and especially budget CPU categories as it conceded the higher end of the market to rival Intel. That all changed with the introduction of its Zen architecture and Ryzen processor launch. Suddenly AMD became a force to be reckoned with, and if anyone needs any further evidence of that, just look at the most recent Steam hardware survey.

Leading up to the launch of AMD's second generation Ryzen processors, Steam's hardware survey revealed that AMD already made some headway with its first gen Ryzen chips. In the PC processor usage category, Steam shows that AMD increased its share by nearly 5 percent in April, or 4.81 percent to be exact. Intel's share declined by virtually the same amount, at 4.82 percent.


Overall, Intel still has a big lead over AMD with a greater than 84 percent share of Steam gamers running its CPU hardware, versus just under 16 percent for AMD. However, the most recent survey shows a nearly 10 percent swing as AMD continues to, uh, chip away at Intel (see what we did there?).

Things look even more promising the further back we look. At the beginning of the year, for example, Intel held a nearly 92 percent share of Steam gamers, versus AMD's paltry 8 percent. In the three months since then, AMD has managed to double its share of systems that log into Steam with its CPU hardware inside. This is no doubt due to Ryzen.

One thing that's helped is that prices for first generation Ryzen processors have come down considerably since launch. The Ryzen 7 1800X debuted at $499, but can now be bought for $315. It's a bang-for-buck play, and even though Intel processors are generally faster in single-threaded workloads, AMD is currently offering more cores and threads for the money.

It will be interesting to see how AMD's second generation Ryzen processors affect the makeup on Steam going forward. The newest CPUs are more expensive than their first first generation counterparts, but they also launched at lower initial price points. In addition, AMD is expected to flesh out its desktop processor lineup with more SKUs in the coming weeks.