The short version
- Valve's Steam Hardware & Software Survey for October 2026 puts the RTX 3060 and RTX 5070 level at 3.78% of surveyed PCs, the joint most common graphics cards on Steam.
- The RTX 3060 launched in February 2021 at $329 (about ₹31,300). The RTX 5070 launched in March 2025 at $549 (about ₹52,200).
- Several RTX 50-series cards that jumped in September fell back in October. The RTX 5070 dropped 2.37 points.
- 1080p rose to 50.23% of primary displays, 16GB of RAM overtook 32GB, and Simplified Chinese users fell from about 31.4% to 21.98%, which explains a lot of the movement.
What the survey is
Every month, Steam asks a random sample of users whether they'll share their system specs. Valve publishes the totals at the start of the next month, so October's numbers went up at the start of November.
It's the biggest public snapshot of what PC gamers actually use, but it's a sample, not a census. Valve doesn't say how many people took part, and the mix of countries can change from month to month. Keep that in mind for anything below that moved by several points.
The top graphics cards
| Rank | GPU | October share | Change vs September |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1= | RTX 3060 | 3.78% | +0.12 |
| 1= | RTX 5070 | 3.78% | -2.37 |
| 3 | RTX 4060 Laptop | 3.60% | +0.10 |
| 4 | RTX 4060 | 3.51% | -0.38 |
| 5 | RTX 3050 | 3.25% | +0.35 |
| 6 | RTX 5060 | 3.15% | -1.25 |
| 7 | RTX 5060 Ti | 2.70% | -1.36 |
| 8 | RTX 5060 Laptop | 2.68% | +0.23 |
| 9 | GTX 1650 | 2.44% | +0.25 |
| 10 | RTX 4060 Ti | 2.30% | -0.55 |
Further down, the RTX 3060 Ti has 2.13%, the RTX 3070 1.98%, the RTX 5070 Ti 1.91% and the RTX 5080 1.78%. Intel's Iris Xe laptop graphics, which aren't a gaming GPU at all, also have 1.78%.
Every card in the top 14 is an Nvidia GeForce. The first non-Nvidia entry is Intel's integrated Iris Xe, and AMD's best showing near the top is its generic "AMD Radeon Graphics" line for integrated chips, at 1.75%.
Image: Zerocade
Why the RTX 50-series fell back
September's survey had a sudden jump for Nvidia's newest cards: the RTX 5070 reached 6.15%, with the 5060 and 5060 Ti also up sharply. In October they all dropped again. The 5070 lost 2.37 points, the 5060 Ti 1.36 and the 5060 1.25.
Cards don't disappear from people's PCs in a month, so this looks like a sampling swing rather than gamers ripping out new GPUs. The clearest clue is the language table. Simplified Chinese fell by 9.41 points to 21.98%, while English rose 4.84 points to 39.04%.
Chinese users' PCs tend to look different from the global average: more recent mid-range Nvidia cards, more 1440p screens and more 32GB RAM kits. When their share of the sample shrinks, all of those numbers fall at once. Valve doesn't explain the swings, so treat this as a likely explanation rather than a confirmed one. The same thing has happened in earlier years, which is why survey watchers look at several months together rather than one.
Memory, screens and processors
The other sections tell the same story of a slightly older, cheaper sample in October:
- System RAM: 16GB is now the most common amount at 41.42% (+3.60), ahead of 32GB at 37.06% (-5.16). 8GB is still in 7.52% of PCs.
- Graphics memory: 8GB of VRAM leads at 26.92%, just ahead of 16GB at 26.35%. 12GB, the RTX 3060's amount, is on 12.91%. Our VRAM guide explains why 8GB is getting tight in new games.
- Resolution: 1920x1080 is back above half, at 50.23% (+2.32). 2560x1440 fell 5.22 points to 21.82%, and 4K sits at 5.05%.
- Processors: Intel has 53.48% of Windows PCs and AMD 46.51%, a shift of under a point. Six and eight physical cores together cover about 56% of systems.
Image: Zerocade
Windows, Linux and SteamOS
Windows runs on 93.70% of surveyed PCs. Within that, Windows 11 is on 72.51% and Windows 10 on 21.11%, down 2.50 points as more people move off the older version.
Linux rose 0.90 points to 3.95%. The two SteamOS entries add up to about 0.87%, and Linux gaming distributions CachyOS (0.65%) and Bazzite (0.27%) both grew slightly. macOS is at 2.35%.
What it means if you game on a budget
On paper, the survey says the "typical" Steam PC is still a 1080p machine with an 8GB or 12GB Nvidia card, 16GB of RAM and a six- or eight-core CPU. That matters because developers look at these numbers when they set minimum and recommended specs.
It also explains why a card launched in 2021 is still holding on. The RTX 3060's 12GB of memory has aged better than the 8GB on many newer budget cards. With RAM and GPU prices rising because of the AI-driven memory shortage, as we covered in our RTX 5080 pricing story, plenty of players are holding on to what they have.
November's survey arrives at the start of December. Watch whether Simplified Chinese bounces back, and whether the RTX 5070 climbs with it.
