The latest Steam Hardware & Software Survey results, released in early June 2026, reveal a noteworthy shift in the gaming landscape, particularly regarding operating systems. Windows 11 continues to solidify its position among gamers, now powering nearly 70% of all surveyed PCs. This marks a significant increase, with Windows 11’s market share rising to 69.76%, reflecting a gain of 2.02 points since the previous month. In contrast, Windows 10 is experiencing a gradual decline, now accounting for 23.99% of users, a drop of 1.64 points.
Operating System Trends
Interestingly, remnants of the past still linger in the form of Windows 7, which, despite being 17 years old, is still utilized by approximately 0.07% of survey participants. While Valve has ceased updates for this aging operating system, it remains accessible for those who prefer to hold onto it rather than transition to newer versions.
Overall, the dominance of Windows in the gaming community is striking, with 93.85% of users running Windows, a slight increase of 0.38 points. Linux follows as the second most popular operating system at 3.99%, although it has seen a decrease of 0.53 points. macOS holds a modest third place with 2.16%, gaining 0.15 points. Among Linux distributions, Arch Linux leads with a share of 0.35%, while the most prevalent macOS version is 26.4.1.
Hardware Insights
On the hardware front, the survey highlights a preference for Intel processors, which dominate with 53.94% of the market, compared to AMD’s 46.06%. Gamers are increasingly opting for six-core processors, which represent 28.02% of the total, alongside 16 GB of memory, favored by 41.14% of users.
Graphics cards also tell a compelling story, with NVIDIA leading the pack at 72.42%. The most popular graphics card on the platform is the desktop NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3060, holding a market share of 3.85%, followed closely by the laptop RTX 4060 at 3.77% and the RTX 3050 at 3.10%.
In terms of VRAM, the average stands at 8GB, with 25.89% of users utilizing this amount. The classic display resolution of 1920×1080 pixels remains the most common, accounting for 51.89% of surveyed gamers, albeit with a slight decline of 0.32 points.
For those interested in delving deeper into the data, further details from the latest survey can be found on the official Steam website, where results for April 2026 are also available.
