A brand new Steam {hardware} survey is out, and it might make for attention-grabbing studying for Nvidia. On the one hand, the corporate continues to dominate the GPU market with eight of the highest 10 GPUs being made by Workforce Inexperienced.
Nonetheless, these results additionally level some potential difficulties for Nvidia, particularly regarding the present method for its imminent RTX 4000 collection of next-generation graphics playing cards.
It is because each type of eight GPUs it has within the high 10 is both a finance or mid-range GPU. The GeForce RTX 3060 Laptop computer GPU is the preferred graphics card utilized by PC avid gamers who’ve entered the Steam {hardware} survey, adopted by the GTX 1060, RTX 3050, RTX 3060, and GTX 1660.
In reality, you don’t see a high-end GPU till you get to the RTX 3070 Ti laptop computer GPU at quantity 14. As for ultra-high-end GPUs, there’s just one within the high 30 – the RTX 3080 Ti – and that simply squeezed in at quantity 29.
Whereas it is probably not an excessive amount of a shock that PC avid gamers are gravitating in direction of extra inexpensive GPUs, it seems that it’s information to Nvidia – because it continues to be fixated on pumping out high-end GPUs.
Evaluation: Is Nvidia making a costly mistake?
With Nvidia’s upcoming RTX 4000 collection of graphics playing cards, it seems to be like making inexpensive GPUs simply isn’t a precedence for the corporate. On the launch occasion, we solely noticed three GPUs – two variations of the RTX 4080 and the RTX 4090. Whereas all of those GPUs will undoubtedly be extremely highly effective – and fairly costly – there was no point out in extra inexpensive RTX 4000 GPUs, such as the RTX 4070 or RTX 4060.
Nvidia will nearly definitely announce these GPUs sooner or later. Nonetheless, for PC avid gamers who merely can not afford these high-end GPUs to play the most effective PC video games, it may feel like the corporate is ignoring them. It doesn’t assist that in a time when persons are struggling to search out GPUs they’ll afford, the one different GPU Nvidia launched this 12 months was the super-high-end RTX 3090 Ti.
Whereas launching extremely highly effective GPUs to kick begin its new RTX 4000 collection – and to little doubt garner impressive headlines – Nvidia shouldn’t neglect the financial finish of the market. Its fundamental rival AMD will gladly tackle extra budget-conscious avid gamers who’re feeling spurned by Nvidia, and Intel is getting into the discrete gaming GPU fray with its collection of Arc GPUs that look more likely to critically undercut Nvidia in the case of value.
When the RTX 4080s and RTX 4090 launch, we will think about them showing anyplace close to the highest of Steam {hardware} surveys for a very long time – if in any respect. However, if Nvidia needs to proceed with its dominance, it’s should begin interesting to common PC avid gamers – not simply fans.
