Linux adoption falls and mid-range GPUs still dominate gaming in Steam Survey for August 2025
Despite the seeming increasing popularity of Linux in the PC gaming space, with Linux distributions like CachyOS and Bazzite offering much of the polish of Windows with the promised performance and customisation gains of Linux and SteamOS, it seems as though 2025 may not be the illusive year of the Linux desktop.
At the same time, the results indicate a growing rift in the hardware expectations of game developers and the actual hardware in gaming PCs in the homes of gamers.
Linux — Doomed to "almost 3%" forever?
One of the more interesting data points in this Steam Survey is that Linux adoption, which has been on an upward trend, has fallen again, dropping by 0.25% to a total of 2.64% of Steam users sampled. This might seem like a relatively small decrease, but it's an entire 10% change compared to the previous survey. Previous increases in the Linux user base signalled healthy growth, which would be a positive indicator to developers potentially considering official Linux support for everything from games and software to gaming hardware, so many Linux users remain hopeful that projects like SteamOS and the Steam Deck will continue to contribute to Linux's market share, but things seem to be slowing down somewhat.
Within the Linux camp itself, the Steam Deck (curr. $467.90 on Amazon) and its SteamOS Holo still reigns supreme at 27.65% of Steam's Linux user base, while CachyOS gained a little, and Bazzite managed to grab 2.21% of Steam's Linux users.
Meanwhile, macOS also saw a decrease in the Steam user base, falling to just 1.77% of users, and Windows picked up 0.36%, with a total of 95.59% of Steam users counting towards Microsoft's total.
Overall CPU and GPU market share
On the hardware front, it seems as though mid-range GPUs still power the majority of gaming experiences, with the Nvidia GeForce RTX 4060 overtaking the RTX 3060 as first prize as the most popular gaming GPU. Despite all the recent talk about 8 GB of VRAM simply not being enough for gaming in 2025, it's still the most common VRAM quantity in the Steam Survey, increasing by 1.37% to just over 35% of sampled Steam users still using that specification. Despite all the talk of 16 GB VRAM being the sweet spot for gaming in 2025, only 6.80% of Steam users have that much video memory at their disposal.
All of this mid-range hardware has sparked discussions online about game developers being out of touch with the hardware that average gamers have in at their disposal. This is especially true now that some AAA games are requiring GPUs like the RTX 2070, or sometimes more powerful GPUs, as a minimum spec for gaming.
Interestingly, compared to the same time last year, Intel's CPU market share has fallen by 9%, from 68% in August 2024 to 59% in August 2025. AMD, on the other hand, powers 41.03% of PCs in August, compared to 31.9% in August 2024.
