Trends from the April 2026 Steam Hardware Survey

[David_Schroth]

Valve has published the April 2026 Steam Hardware Survey, and the big story this month is normalization. Last month’s data was a statistical mess, with Linux at an improbable 5.33%, the 16 GB RAM tier jumping wildly, and the RTX 5070 temporarily sitting at an anomalous position. April looks a lot more like what you’d […]

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[GodisanAtheist]

I know it's a bit of a conspiracy at this point, but I don't think AMD cards get surveyed as often as Nvidia cards.

When I was running my 980ti in one PC and 6800xt in the other, I kept getting the survey popping up on my 980ti machine.

Now that I have a 9070xt and 6800xt in the two machines, I don't get surveyed on anything.

Maybe just my own perception, but when I hear people talking about it I do wonder.

 

[Grimlakin]

I know it's a bit of a conspiracy at this point, but I don't think AMD cards get surveyed as often as Nvidia cards.

When I was running my 980ti in one PC and 6800xt in the other, I kept getting the survey popping up on my 980ti machine.

Now that I have a 9070xt and 6800xt in the two machines, I don't get surveyed on anything.

Maybe just my own perception, but when I hear people talking about it I do wonder.

That is a fair point ive been AMD a long while and think ive had.. 1 survey?

 

[DrezKill]

This time I got asked to participate in the survey two days in a row. Yesterday when I was in Linux, and today in Win10. Usually I only get asked once maybe a couple/few times a year, if that.

 

[Ranulfo]

I have definately gotten asked to fill out the survey more while on an intel/nvidia setup than AMD/AMD or AMD/nvidia combos over the last 10-12 years. When I last swapped from an AMD/AMD system to the intel/nvidia one, I got a survey within a month I think yet I hadn't had a survey in close to two years on the all amd system. I'm soon going back to all AMD but will have three systems with steam on it, it will be interesting to see what system gets a survey first.

 

[igor_kavinski]

I don't understand the survey approach. Why not just collect system info during idle periods, keep a unique system fingerprint in their database against each Steam username (store multiple fingerprints if the user has multiple machines) and publish the survey using that data without sharing any personally identifiable information. It seems dumb that they ask permission from the users and then post those skewed results.

 

[DrezKill]

I don't understand the survey approach. ...It seems dumb that they ask permission from the users...

I'd rather they ask than just do sh1t without my permission or knowledge.

Why not just collect system info during idle periods...

This is fine if it is opt-out by default, and the user has to manually opt-in.

...keep a unique system fingerprint in their database against each Steam username (store multiple fingerprints if the user has multiple machines)...

I dunno if I want them doing all that.

I like the current system cuz they ask first, and then the hardware scan happens.

 

[Uvilla]

So are we ncluding the survey is crap?

 

[igor_kavinski]

So are we ncluding the survey is crap?

For me it is. At least they should include a menu option in Steam so the user can participate instead of being invited randomly to take the survey. Radeon users reporting that they aren't presented with the survey is suspicious as hell.

 

[Uvilla]

For me it is. At least they should include a menu option in Steam so the user can participate instead of being invited randomly to take the survey. Radeon users reporting that they aren't presented with the survey is suspicious as hell.

It certainly sounds iffy, question is motive though? Also, it woulnt even be a survey if they cant remove duplicates and such matters.
Whatever valve does, they do, it may be the worse 'survey' of all time for all we know... But thats them, and whatever... however perhaps for people doing tech news and commentary perhaps should consider that if this 'survey' lacks reasonable published methodology, they shouldnt even discuss it, communicate with each other and ban this crap of even talking about it, valve can do whatever, but whats the point of discussing what may be complete garbage (i dont know of course, but yeah)

 

[Brian_B]

So... If you ask a mathematician, you don't need a huge sample size (assuming the distribution is homogenous). A few hundred upwards of a thousand results are enough to extrapolate useful results, and more sampling than that, regardless of the population size, are usually just used to try to correct for distribution anomalies.

There are, what, hundreds of millions of active accounts, and probably in excess of a Billion accounts total.

So just because you don't personally get an invitation to the survey very often doesn't mean that it isn't relevant or lacks accuracy. You have a roughly 1,000/100,000,000 chance (give or take) of seeing one in a given month. Plenty of people, even on these forums, report getting them occasionally - and given the sample size here, that roughly tracks with about what I would expect based on those odds.

 

[Peter_Brosdahl]

I don't understand the survey approach. Why not just collect system info during

They are looking into do this. Pretty sure I did a post on it last month but may have just put a link in another thread regarding Steam/Valve.

On the flipside, I've been using NVIDIA GPUs for over a decade, and AMD CPU/NV GPU combo for almost a decade, and don't remember ever getting a survey request. Perhaps I got one back during my 2600K/4930K era but don't remember but can confirm none since moving to AMD CPUs.

 

[LazyGamer]

For me it is. At least they should include a menu option in Steam so the user can participate instead of being invited randomly to take the survey. Radeon users reporting that they aren't presented with the survey is suspicious as hell.

I've gotten it, on discrete GPUs and on APUs.

But it's still being reported enough that we're talking about it, which makes it suspicious at a minimum.

However, I would argue that the relatively small marketshare of AMD GPUs might have something to do with it; their users are typically louder than than their balance sheets support...

 

[igor_kavinski]

So... If you ask a mathematician, you don't need a huge sample size (assuming the distribution is homogenous). A few hundred upwards of a thousand results are enough to extrapolate useful results, and more sampling than that, regardless of the population size, are usually just used to try to correct for distribution anomalies.

For something like real world surveys involving random people on the street, that works well due to the time and cost involved but the Steam survey is completely digital. Valve can certainly absorb the storage and compute costs of doing a more extensive survey. If the AMD/Intel hardware percentage being reported by them is inaccurate, they are directly hurting these products as people may decide to go with the more popular hardware if they use the survey results for decision making. The April 2026 survey reports NO 9060 models and no 9070 XT models. Only the 9070 model with a really sad percentage.

Then there are the weird anomalies:



What happened there?? Were all those GPUs, including the weaker 4060/5060, sold on the used market to AI companies? So these people bought the GPUs, jumped on Steam, played long enough to get an invite for a Steam survey and then sold them, all in one month???