Valve’s monthly research into its Steam hardware survey for January was released the other day and the numbers make for interesting, if not unexpected, reading. For example, Windows 11 has made slight progress over Windows 10, and the number of CPU cores and the amount of formula RAM is increasing. I’ve been following the research since last July, adding the distribution of the graphics cards, and one thing stands out: AMD RDNA 3 cards are almost the most unlikely to find.
AMD said it has noticed an increase in sales of its Radeon products, “due to strong industry demand for our Radeon 6000 and Radeon 7000 GPUs. “There’s no explanation for any of us to doubt such a claim (in fact, it would be if AMD blatantly lied about it), however, in the last seven Steam hardware surveys, only one Radeon RX 7000 series card appeared, the Radeon RX. 7900 XTX.
And to make matters worse, there are more original RDNA cards (for example, the Radeon RX 5700 XT) in all the samples I’ve reviewed with the newer architecture.
There are a total of seven models in the RX 7000 series, introduced over thirteen months. It’s not a huge portfolio, but it’s more than enough to ensure that, if diversity is successful, they’ll have a good chance of showing up in the survey statistics. But it’s just a desktop graphics card, and the top one AMD has had lately. So what’s going on here?
Nvidia’s desktop GeForce RTX 40-series is only a little more diverse, with ten models on offer, though they have been around longer (15 months). Laptop manufacturers have generally snubbed Radeons as the GPU of choice for their gaming products, but AMD has enjoyed huge success in the handheld PC sector, as almost all of them sport a Radeon graphics chip.
There’s also the nature of the research on Valve’s hardware to consider. For example, we have no idea how long the pattern will last or the geographic distribution of the results, but that’s why I collect the numbers over months to check them and get a bigger picture.
I haven’t listed any GPU architectures indexed as “Other” or those with a lower number of patterns than RNDA 3 in the table above, however, it can be noted that over the course of six months of research, Valve has registered very few Radeon RXs. 7000 series cards in your sampling.
AMD enjoys better sales figures in some countries compared to others, and there’s always the possibility that these locations are under-represented in the sampling. Internet/gaming cafes in the Southeast Asia market can often skew the GPU results heavily towards Nvidia, but even accounting for that, you’d think there would be more than one Radeon 7000-series card in the listings. Especially since there are some really old and very obscure GPUs still turning up.
All of this leads me to the fact that either AMD’s claim about increased demand is more for the older RX 6000 series than the newer, or it has simply been exceptionally unfortunate with Valve’s sampling distribution. Or users are embarrassed to click Yes when asked. Submit your system. But if one goes to the 3DMark results database and presents GPUs according to their popularity, then RDNA 3 cards are more visible.
However, those numbers depend on the number of benchmark effects downloaded in a given period of time, and in theory, a user can submit a bunch of scores in a matter of weeks, making their graphics card a little more popular than it is.
Naturally, the truth of the scenario will fall somewhere between AMD’s claims and the figures reported through the Steam Hardware Survey and the 3DMark database. It’s all about getting your hands on the exact number of Radeon desktop cards sold internationally each month. So we want to take a look at the statistics above and make a decision, based on the evidence we have.
Nick, Gaming and Computers met in 1981, with a love affair that began with a Sinclair ZX81 kit and a book on ZX Basic. He eventually became a professor of physics and computer science, but in the late 1990s it was time to start writing for a long-defunct British tech site. He then did the same at Madonion, helping to write the support files for 3DMark and PCMark. After a brief stint at Beyond3D. com, Nick joined Futuremark (renamed MadOnion) full-time, as editor-in-chief of its games and hardware division, YouGamers. After the site’s closure, he became a professor of engineering and computer science for many years, but had no taste for writing. 4 years out of TechSpot. com and over a hundred lengthy articles on anything. He openly admits to being too obsessed with GPUs and open-world RPGs, but who is rarely very much in those days?
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