Intel Fighting Back According To New Steam Hardware Survey

It’s no secret that Intel and AMD have been going head to head in the processor market. For a while, it has looked like AMD has picked up speed and has been set to take a huge chunk of Intel’s market share. However, a recent survey highlights that Intel is fighting back in the PC gaming market. 

The latest Steam Hardware Survey has dropped a few interesting pieces of information. It looks like Intel is clawing back some market share regarding processor usage. 

Share Of The CPU Market Shifted In March

In March, Intel’s share of the CPU market rose from 78.2% to 81.25%. While this isn’t a huge increase, these numbers really put the whole thing back into perspective for a lot of us who have been impressed with AMD’s progress in recent years. 

This also means that AMD’s market share fell to 18.75% which could be disappointing for AMD fans and shareholders alike. 

A Move Towards Slower CPUs

In the Steam survey results, it shows that users have moved away from the more powerful processors, for example, those that can achieve at 3.7 GHz and above. Instead, more users have been using CPUs that clock in at 3 GHz and below.

Could this be due to people digging out old Intel-powered laptops during the COVID-19 isolation? Or is it simply a sign of the times that people don’t have the money to splash out on a top-tier CPU?

Integrated Graphics And Laptop Usage

You can also see an increase in the usage of Intel’s integrated graphics offerings. For example, Intel HD graphics 4000 with DirectX 11 has increased by 2.95% and the Intel HD graphics 3000 with DirectX 10 is up by 2.78%. 

From these stats alone and the move towards lower-powered CPUs, it looks like more and more people have been using laptops to access Steam this month.

Working From Home Works In Intel’s Favor

This seems to reflect the current trend of increased laptop purchases – which makes sense because a lot of people have been forced to work from home and laptops are a handy solution. With so many people working from home, it’s only natural that a few of them are taking some well-deserved gaming breaks. 

Another interesting stat from the survey showed that there has been a 1.23% increase for Intel on Linux which seems to mirror the above point – that a lot of people are using work laptops to log into Steam

With record numbers of people logging into Steam in March, it looks like this trend will be set to continue for another few weeks or months as we look for ways to cure the boredom during isolation.