AMD closes in on 30% overall PC processor usage share in new Steam hardware survey as Intel preps Alder Lake for fresh assault on Ryzen adulation
It seems likely that AMD will have crossed the 30% mark in terms of processor usage share in Steam’s survey within the next month or two. Team Red currently claims 29.54% of the overall share, which is a record amount for the Ryzen designer over the last 12 months. In contrast, Intel has slipped to 70.46% for April’s survey, after hitting 81.0% only a few months ago. Although stock of Ryzen 5000 has been hard to come by for many, Ryzen is still the brand name that gamers appear to be increasingly looking for when it comes to CPU choice.
In fact, AMD has enjoyed positive gains not only overall but also for systems that use either Windows or Linux for an operating system. Team Red gained +0.51% share with Windows PC users and +0.78% with those who preferred to game on a Linux-based device. While subsequent Ryzen generations have been met with general bouts of adulation and praise, recent Intel generations have often been met with a lukewarm response at best. Rocket Lake has gone off more with a fizzle than a bang and many critics have been merciless in their disapproval of SKUs like the Intel Core i9-11900K.
But a lot of that criticism has been based on Intel seemingly squeezing every drop of performance out of 14 nm process-based chips. The upcoming hybrid Alder Lake generation will be manufactured on a 10 nm node, and an apparent engineering sample has already leaked some of its secrets with the 12th Gen chips hopefully being more power-efficient than other Team Blue processors. If AMD does skip a Ryzen 6000 Warhol launch this year, as is widely believed, then Intel will have a perfect opportunity to impress with Alder Lake and enjoy some time in the sun before Zen 4 comes along.
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