AMD graphics cards are a decent enough option if you're looking to buy a new GPU, but they have been playing second fiddle to Nvidia for more than half a decade. On top of that, its latest RX 6000 generation, which does offer competitive performance and features, has been so hard to get and so overpriced, that it's barely registered in user numbers, despite the millions who have been lucky enough to buy one. That's starting to change though, as the first RX 6000 graphics card, the RX 6700 XT, has just made an appearance on the Steam hardware survey.
The RX 6000 series was the first generation of AMD GPUs to offer hardware accelerated ray tracing, and now with Fidelity FX Super Resolution, a credible upscaler too. General performance was pretty comparable to Nvidia's new RTX 3000 series cards as well, with the RX 6700 XT competing directly against the likes of the RTX 3060 Ti and 3070. It's still one of the weaker cards of the generation, but that means when it's in stock, its price tag isn't too bad either. That's why it's become the first to make headway in the Steam hardware survey.
It's still only 0.16%, but it's something. It's almost as much as the entire RX Vega range of GPUs, and the RX 5700, which are just 0.17% a piece. The currently most popular AMD graphics card almost breaks the top 10. The AMD RX 580 is sitting pretty with a 1.65% stake in the entire Steam user base. That puts it just behind the RTX 3070.
Amazingly, the most popular GPUs are still the GTX 1060 and 1050 Ti, which control almost 17% of the entire player base by themselves, with other popular entry level cards the GTX 1650 and RTX 2060 coming in just behind.In fact, Nvidia's own RTX 3000 series only just breaks the top 10 with one entry, with its other cards from the latest generation barely registering a single percent of their own.
The GPU industry is in a dire state.
