Steam On Linux Ticks Closer To 1.0%, AMD CPUs Now Power A Third Of Linux Gaming Systems

Valve has updated their monthly Steam Hardware/Software Survey statistics for September and they indicate the closest we've seen in a while for Steam on Linux closing back in on the 1.0% threshold.

Back during August Valve reported a 0.89% marketshare for Linux compared to 0.86% in July. But for September it jumped by 0.05% to 0.94%. Given the continually increasing Steam user-base, this is likely the largest the Steam on Linux marketshare has ever been in absolute terms.

Going back to the early days of Steam on Linux years ago it was around a 2% marketshare before declining to the very low ~0.4% area. But since the roll-out of Steam Play for Linux in allowing thousands of Windows games to run gracefully on Linux, there has been a relatively steady increase in the Linux gaming percentage.

The past year or so has largely been in the 0.7~0.9% range and thus a pleasant surprise to see it ticking up closer now to 1.0%... Granted, many still don't put much faith into the Steam Survey figures.

In any case, the latest data for September 2020 now pegs Steam on Linux at 0.94% to macOS at 3.46% and Windows at 95.61%.

The numbers point for those gaming on Linux that the Intel CPU marketshare dropped another 1.5% to 66.6% with AMD now at a third of all Linux gaming systems. That 66% Intel CPU marketshare by Linux gamers is lower than the Windows numbers where Intel still commands a 74.2% marketshare. The numbers also still point to AMD Radeon Polaris as being the most popular, quad-core CPUs still being most common, and just over half of those surveyed still running 1080p as their standard resolution.