Trends from the April 2026 Steam Hardware Survey

[David_Schroth]

MSI? If so, it would track with why they bailed on radeon.

LTT had tens of thousands more responses than the TPU poll, same roughly 1 in 3 users.

I would say the population of LTT (or TPU) readers is not a population that is representative of all steam users...

 

[LazyGamer]

They already have the same basic system specs telemetry e.g. AMD collects it via radeon software. It is all they need to sample. It contains OS, gpu, cpu, amount of ram.

I'm thinking more along the lines of enough telemetry to uniquely identify a system and an install - like, if you wipe your OS between surveys - or hell, just reboot into another OS (dual-boot Windows and Linux) - that would influence the survey results. The question is whether Valve collects enough data to make that distinction, and whether the FOSS / privacy communities would be comfortable if they did.

I'm betting that there's something falling through the cracks here that requires some cleanup to interpret.

I have all 3 vendors cards, your anecdote is faulty.

and that comes with side effects that are likely more vocal and AMD users...

This was supposed to be "than AMD users".

 

[Uvilla]

So I assume there is no published methodology, so its complete garbage.
Shoulnt be discussed at all, seriously.
It may be a long running experiment /PR op by some valve employee for all we know, to see how info spreads, reactions and such matters, not saying malicious, plus bonus keeps you talked about, for free.

As mentioned, I too cant see the difficulty of having hyper accurate data on, gpu, cpu, ram, hdd and a number of hardware aspecs are core part of programs, more so games funcioning correctly so why would the steam client itself not have data.
Are we forgetting each and every chip since the 90s? Has a unique id number, this across basically every cpu ever made arm x86 whatever.
The client likely has everything, everysingle cpu id everything. No names and adresses needed.
Fantasy to think otherwise.
Why they dont use it, idk, probably its trade secret style data, hence do this weird PR survey crap. Matter of fact even if they mention methodology, i convinced myself its a PR tool end of story.

 

[DAPUNISHER]

I would say the population of LTT (or TPU) readers is not a population that is representative of all steam users...

Agreed. Steam is a huge platform, no doubt. It does seem highly likely the polls are mostly limited to/pertain to non Asian gamers. However, LTT has almost 17M subs on their main channel alone. And both polls had far beyond the number of responses necessary for accuracy. The results reflect millions in those regions, and is worth inclusion, despite not representing all steam users everywhere.

Of course, AMD graphics potentially being under represented does not address the problems with the Steam survey itself. I also do not subscribe to the hypothesis that there is a conspiracy against AMD. Valve has worked closely with AMD and used their hardware for both the Steam Deck and Steam Machine. My position on the topic is that the Steam survey should be taken with a grain of salt. Given it is a black box prone to enormous errors.

 

[DAPUNISHER]

Why they dont use it, idk, probably its trade secret style data, hence do this weird PR survey crap. Matter of fact even if they mention methodology, i convinced myself its a PR tool end of story.

Interesting take on it. I had not considered it from a solely PR/marketing angle.

AMD cited the telemetry from the Adrenalin app when discussing the real possibility of manufacturing some SKUs again. It is a straight forward use of the data collected anonymously. It makes your idea that the survey is a PR gimmick, rather appealing to me as an explanation for why it is even conducted.