What just happened? Not for the first time, the Steam survey has returned to some semblance of normality following a bizarre month. That means we have a new top GPU, AMD has reached yet another record CPU share, and Intel Arc has finally broken into the main chart.
February was one of those weird months where the Steam survey saw massive changes from the status quo: the RTX 5070 became the top GPU, AMD lost CPU share, Windows 11 was down 10%, and Chinese became the most common language among participants.
The latest results from March's survey are a lot more familiar. The long-running trend of the RTX 3060, RTX 4060, and RTX 4060 laptop swapping places at the top of the GPU chart continues with the RTX 3060 returning to the top and the other two GPUs directly below it. The previous leader, the RTX 5070, is now fifth.
Looking at the month's best performers, the RTX 4060 laptop was the leader here. There were also some new entries in the main GPU chart: the RTX 5070 laptop, RTX 5050 laptop, and, four years after launch, Intel's Arc GPUs have finally arrived. Valve lists it as "Intel Arc Graphics," so it's likely a laptop variant – probably the integrated graphics in the Core Ultra series mobile processors.
Elsewhere on the survey, AMD is back on track to surpass Intel in the CPU chart. Team Red's share among participants saw a rare decline in February, but it hit a new record of 44.1% in March as Intel dropped to 55.8%.
AMD has long looked on track to overtake Intel in the CPU section this year, but the arrival of the critically acclaimed Core Ultra Plus series could slow the red rise.
Unsurprisingly, Windows 11, which was down 10.4% in February, was up 10.5% in March. Windows 10, meanwhile, crashed 14.8%, leaving just over a quarter of participants still using the older Microsoft OS.
March was a good month for Linux fans. The open-source OS reached a record high of 5.3%, helped by the Steam Deck and its Arch Linux-based SteamOS – Arch Linux was the distro with the largest share (0.34%).
February also saw 32GB suddenly become the most common amount of RAM after it jumped 19%. But its 20.3% fall in March and the 13.5% increase in 16GB users mean the latter is back on top.
Finally, Chinese is no longer the most common language. It was down 31% as English regained the crown.