What you need to know
- August 2021 results are in for Steam's monthly hardware and software survey.
- AMD is losing ground in both the GPU and CPU markets.
- Windows 7 somehow controls almost 9% of the Steam userbase.
Each and every month, Steam releases a survey outlining what hardware and software its userbase is utilizing. It's not a perfect way to keep tabs on consumer changes as the numbers aren't perfect and the fluctuations can be a bit odd at times, but it's still a useful way to keep an eye on general trends and see where the gamers™ are flocking.
This month, the results paint a negative picture for AMD (relative to previous months) and an unusually happy picture for Windows 7, otherwise known as the OS to come before Windows 8, Windows 8.1, Windows 10, and the soon-to-release Windows 11. Somehow, this many years after Windows 7's time in the spotlight, the operating system still retains 8.68% of Steam users' machines (up 3.2% from last month).
For reference, Windows 10 (64-bit) sits at 86.64%, while Windows 8.1 (64-bit) is at 0.76%. Windows 7 64-bit has more users under its umbrella than OSX and Linux combined, according to the August 2021 results.
On the flip side of the success coin, AMD has lost the steady headway it'd been making in May of this year when it managed to briefly control over 30% of the CPU market share amongst Steam users. Now, it's down to 27.31%, a 1.88% decrease from last month. AMD also lost ground on the GPU front, with its best graphics cards losing roughly 1% of control between July and August, leaving the company's cards with just 14.05% of the market.
We'll see how things shake out next month as well as in October, when Windows 11 will be around to alter the OS statistics.
