Steam stats and CPUs/Hardware, why so serious?

[Ranulf]

So, steam stats on cpus were brought up in another thread, namely this:

Agreed. If we look at statistics on Steam http://store.steampowered.com/hwsurvey/processormfg/ we can see that AMD usage on Windows has been dropping and Ryzen changed nothing. And Intel had nothing really interesting during that time. Now with release of Skylake-X and Coffelake it seems this trend will continue.

Three months in and we should see a big change on steam? How many retail systems have ryzen chips in them? Most video cards are 750ti's or integrated video. CPUs are 3.3ghz to 3.69ghz. About the only stat I can buy showing up being reasonably accurate is new video cards adoption and windows OS versions.

The question I ask is, do people here really take steam hardware stats seriously for anything? How often have you gotten on the survey? I think I've been offered it once or twice and turned it down once.

The only info from Steam I take without any serious questions is active users for a game.

 

[whm1974]

I see Steam stats as a rule of thumb to be taken with a grain of salt. I think Valve should completely redo and revamp their survey and stats methods so they could be really useful.

 

[Shivansps]

I see Steam stats as a rule of thumb to be taken with a grain of salt. I think Valve should completely redo and revamp their survey and stats methods so they could be really useful.

Well the exact same thing was said when Steam RX400 vs GTX1060 numbers showed up and ended up to be true, they did not sell as many cards as they hoped for.

BUT i was expecting a bit more push once the 1600 showed up. It is also true that the people that was more desperate to upgrade was the people that already owned a AMD cpu... many, many people with Phenom 2 or FX rushed to Ryzen, that does not gain you market share exactly.

The rest of the people with Intel CPUs are really in no rush to upgrade at all. Even people with SB cpus have no inmediate need to upgrade and can wait next year to see how things pan out. (Zen 2, CFL, etc)...

So no, i would not expect any quick change on steam hw survey, people outside of steam doing actual work with the pcs may be a different matter enterely.

They also need Zen APU ASAP to start making competition on the low end, there is a lot of steam users there.

 

[Reinvented]

Well the exact same thing was said when Steam RX400 vs GTX1060 numbers showed up and ended up to be true, they did not sell as many cards as they hoped for.

BUT i was expecting a bit more push once the 1600 showed up. It is also true that the people that was more desperate to upgrade was the people that already owned a AMD cpu... many, many people with Phenom 2 or FX rushed to Ryzen, that does not gain you market share exactly.

The rest of the people with Intel CPUs are really in no rush to upgrade at all. Even people with SB cpus have no inmediate need to upgrade and can wait next year to see how things pan out. (Zen 2, CFL, etc)...

So no, i would not expect any quick change on steam hw survey, people outside of steam doing actual work with the pcs may be a different matter enterely.

They also need Zen APU ASAP to start making competition on the low end, there is a lot of steam users there.

Steam HW survey still doesn't equal the amount of RX 400 series that really were sold. You have to keep in mind too that most of them and now even the 500 series are used for Ethereum mining. So, no...they weren't true. Not even slightly.

 

[DisarmedDespot]

The problem with steam survey is we don't know much about how it's collected, how long that data is kept, how they determine what is what... As an example, it took a long time for the R9 300 series to show up and it probably still will report the iGPU instead of the dGPU sometimes.

Using 'wow amazing, steam said Nvidia outsold AMD' as a way to claim the steam survey is reliable is downright silly. Predicting Nvidia will outsell AMD is like predicting the earth will revolve around the sun.

 

[Shivansps]

Steam HW survey still doesn't equal the amount of RX 400 series that really were sold. You have to keep in mind too that most of them and now even the 500 series are used for Ethereum mining. So, no...they weren't true. Not even slightly.

Because Steam does not represent the total amount of hardware that was sold. We are more than 7 Billion on the world and Steam has less than 200M users. It should not be used like that.
BUT, Steam is still a good way to have an idea of the hardware that is used in gaming, a GPU like the RX480 is primary sold for gaming, if it does bad in steam, it is very likely it does bad all around, and that part turned out to be true.

CPUs are a different matter because they have a more general use than dGPUs, what Steam is telling is, at least in gaming, no much has changed, so far. Is a shame that CPUs arent specified by name because im sure the problem in Steam is that AMD changed Phenom/FX user for Ryzen users.

 

[Ferzerp]

The stats are pretty representative. There are always the salty ones who take anything less than stellar data about a specific company as an attack on their very selves though. Of course, this is a pretty common human reaction when someone is a fan of a thing (e.g. a sports team, a brand, a company), so we can't really fault them for being upset. People tend to view negative news or the like about a thing that they are passionate about as a threat because it feels like an attack on their sense of self.

 

[coffeemonster]

my steam account is 12 years old and I've never taken the survey. I don't recall ever being asked. Is it through email? maybe my spam filters are too strict?

 

[Shivansps]

my steam account is 12 years old and I've never taken the survey. I don't recall ever being asked. Is it through email? maybe my spam filters are too strict?

Is a pop up on the steam client... similar to the ones with client updates. Maybe if you rejected it once it will never show again? i get asked about 2 or 3 times a year.

 

[Markfw]

I don't even game on steam. Once this was a requirement (being on-line) for any game, I quit playing it. I have 18 computers, and none of my hardware will ever show up there.

I am sure there are a lot of people that don't take the survey, or are not asked. Its garbage stats IMO.

 

[whm1974]

I don't even game on steam. Once this was a requirement (being on-line) for any game, I quit playing it. I have 18 computers, and none of my hardware will ever show up there.

I am sure there are a lot of people that don't take the survey, or are not asked. Its garbage stats IMO.

You can still play Steam games offline, just start the client in offline mode.

 

[Ozzyrulez]

Steam stats are a funny thing. Only used when they fit ones narrative or are completely dismissed because they don't.

 

[HutchinsonJC]

You can opt out of the survey? I thought it was an automatic thing as part of the install/background process of steam? Guess I'll poke around and look.

Even people with SB cpus have no inmediate need to upgrade and can wait next year to see how things pan out.

I won't lie, I've had an itch for new stuff for the last couple or three years, but my OC'd Hex Core SB is still enough for anything I do, if I'm honest with myself.

 

[kawi6rr]

my steam account is 12 years old and I've never taken the survey. I don't recall ever being asked. Is it through email? maybe my spam filters are too strict?

Agreed, my Steam account is a few years old and none if my AMD cards show up on their survey because I've never been asked to participate in one. Not sure how they contact you on it.

4850
6850
280x
290
570

None.

 

[Muscles]

I don't even game on steam. Once this was a requirement (being on-line) for any game, I quit playing it. I have 18 computers, and none of my hardware will ever show up there.

I am sure there are a lot of people that don't take the survey, or are not asked. Its garbage stats IMO.

You are in the extreme minority. I don't know anyone that is a PC gamer that doesn't use steam. The requirement to be online has far more pros than cons. Steam gives a pretty good baseline for the hardware that is out there so I disagree. The stats are updated monthly so it will probably be another month or so until AMD numbers show an increase.

 

[whm1974]

You are in the extreme minority. I don't know anyone that is a PC gamer that doesn't use steam. The requirement to be online has far more pros than cons. Steam gives a pretty good baseline for the hardware that is out there so I disagree. The stats are updated monthly so it will probably be another month or so until AMD numbers show an increase.

Very true for PC games, especially if you game on Linux as I do.

 

[scannall]

It's an interesting curiosity. Kinda fun, but don't take it seriously.

 

[nathanddrews]

I get asked to do the survey several times per year on each machine I own - I do it every time because I want to provide as many data points as possible in the hope that it may someday improve the software I buy. I assume that Valve has some massive relational database or OLAP cube that ties every game, user, hours played, PC configuration, dollars spent, game settings, and your dog's name and sells those data to developers, partners, publishers, and advertisers.

At a high level, devoid of any deep dives or caveats, if I had to summarize the last 2-3 months that Ryzen has been on the scene, it would be "If you want to play games, Intel is better than AMD. More cores don't help." That was the narrative across the board - the 5GHz 7700K dominated not only Ryzen, but Intel HEDT for most gaming scenarios. The reviews covering the Ryzen launch most assuredly cemented Intel as the de facto gaming CPU. That seems to be reflected in the immediate hardware survey data showing a spike in Intel's favor for May. Now if there were a hardware survey for productivity/content creators, then I think we would see a different story.

That said, I'm not a fan of "instant data". We only recently started getting really solid BIOS releases and better memory profiles, games/applications are rapidly being patched for better Ryzen support. In the next 2-3 months, we're getting Threadripper, Vega, and possibly mobile Ryzen for the back to school season. If they market it correctly - Ryzen+Vega mobile APUs will be the esports laptop of choice for this Fall. Then after that I think we'll see AMD gain traction in the survey data. Basically what I'm saying is wait until next May to identify your trends, spikes, regressions, etc. LOL

 

[simas]

Interesting, I think there are multiple camps of users and some are like me (>10 years with Steam, multiple PCs, zero surveys). I just see no value in doing it as a user and generally wish Steam would like leave the service alone

I want fast, reliable content (games) delivery, and patching. I want all of my games to work with and without internet connection as simple as possible. I want things to be as DRM free as possible (thus preference of GOG over Steam if I can get the same product).

I don't care at all about 'social services', 'community',' friends', chat, patches/badges, and other junk that seem to be aimed at 13 year old boys who want to compare theirs with each other to see how they rank in the pack.. I don't understand why Steam is/was trying to turn their platform into Xbox Live ...

 

[nathanddrews]

Interesting, I think there are multiple camps of users and some are like me (>10 years with Steam, multiple PCs, zero surveys). I just see no value in doing it as a user and generally wish Steam would like leave the service alone

I want fast, reliable content (games) delivery, and patching. I want all of my games to work with and without internet connection as simple as possible. I want things to be as DRM free as possible (thus preference of GOG over Steam if I can get the same product).

I don't care at all about 'social services', 'community',' friends', chat, patches/badges, and other junk that seem to be aimed at 13 year old boys who want to compare theirs with each other to see how they rank in the pack.. I don't understand why Steam is/was trying to turn their platform into Xbox Live ...

Not sure that being competitive or wanting to know where you are on a bell curve qualifies one as a "13 year old boy", but to each his own, I guess. I think Valve has maintained an excellent balance of providing both high quality experiences as free services for which Microsoft and Sony happily charge money. GOG is a wonderful alternative, I agree, but when Gaben slashes prices by 90%, it's hard to resist...

 

[simas]

"being competitive or wanting to know where you are on a bell curve qualifies one as a "13 year old boy", but to each his own, I guess"

then does it qualifies you as? how insecure one needs to be to care about bell curves or some stupid badges and achievements? it does not change who you are or aren't, why seek this childish external confirmations? isn't badges what baby scouts get for completing an activity, so a way to reward small kids into doing something good for them? why would any self aware, self respecting adult give a f%ck about that? honestly asking.

 

[simas]

"GOG is a wonderful alternative, I agree, but when Gaben slashes prices by 90%, it's hard to resist..."

Yep, in agreement. Stream is convenient, with all of its shortcomings.. Buy once , own forever (well , until they revoke it) , and on any hardware , is a good sale message..