Each month, Steam conducts an optional anonymous survey to analyze what computer software and hardware customers use. The latest data for February 2022 does not show a significant change in hardware preferences, but it does show that Windows 11 is steadily climbing and stealing users from Windows 10 and other operating systems.
Windows 10 remains the dominant operating system across Steam, with 75.69 percent of users preferring the nearly seven-year-old OS over other versions (down 2.13 percentage points in February 2022). Windows 7 - now a "dead" but not forgotten operating system - still has a 4.08% share (up 0.35 points in February 2022).
We can expect Windows 11 share to continue to grow steadily, but without a big spike. Microsoft is not forcing Windows 10 users to move to Windows 11, and the latest processors and graphics cards will work well on previous versions of Windows. In addition, many users may not be able to update their computers to Windows 11 due to the relatively high hardware requirements.
Overall, 96.36% of Steam users prefer Windows (up 0.19 percentage points in February 2022). macOS is second with 2.62% share (down 0.15 percentage points in February 2022), and Linux is third with 1.02% share (down 0.04 percentage points in February 2022).
In terms of hardware, there has been little change since January 2022. The following are the most popular configurations among Steam users:
- CPU Manufacturers: Intel 69.06% (up 0.04 points in February 2022), AMD 30.92% (down 0.04 points in February 2022), Microsoft 0.02%.
- CPU specifications: 4 physical cores, clock frequency of 2.3-2.69GHz.
- GPU manufacturer: Nvidia 76.14%, AMD 14.82%, Intel 8.83%, and others 0.21%.
- GPU models: GTX 1060, GTX 1650, and GTX 1050 Ti.
- GPU memory: 8GB.
- Screen resolution: 1920x1080 (single monitor) and 3840x1080 (multi-monitor).
- VR: Oculus Quest 2 47.09% (up 1.07 percentage points in February 2022), Valve Index 14.43% (up 0.07 percentage points in February 2022), Oculus Rift S 12.14% (down 0.96 percentage points in February 2022).