Well, it finally happened. According to the steam hardware survey, the Nvidia GeForce RTX 4080 And RTX 4070 Ti GPUs were both among the top ten most purchased (or at least ‘most recently plugged in and connected to Steam’) graphics cards in February 2023.
This comes after months of stock restrictions and controversy surrounding Nvidia’s new GPUs, and could signal a shift to current-generation graphics cards among PC gamers. Interesting, the flagship RTX 4090 was absent from the top ten, despite being unmistakably the best graphics card currently on the market (read: it’s because it’s phenomenally expensive).
In comparison, AMD saw very, terribly modest market gains in February, with the best-selling Radeon GPU being the last generation RX6600XTwhich is an excellent choice cheap graphics card currently, but still only accounts for 0.38% of all cards owned by Steam users. By comparison, the trusty old Radeon RX 580 is used by 1.1% of gamers on Steam, while the most popular overall is still the three-year-old Nvidia GTX 1650.
Analysis: These benefits are good for Nvidia, but bad for gamers
Personally, I’m not very happy to see Nvidia’s next-gen graphics cards gaining traction in the PC gaming market. The RTX 4080 is a disappointingly expensive GPU that I wouldn’t recommend to anyone given the currently available alternatives, while the RTX 4070 Ti is much better, but still the controversy surrounding its release. As for the RTX 4090, well, that’s just more money than any gamer has to spend on their PC.
I’ve accused Nvidia (and just about every PC hardware company, to be honest) of anti-consumer moves in the past, and the current trend in GPU pricing makes me want to pull my hair out. Allegedly don’t even get me started on Nvidia limiting RTX 4090 stock to move unsold 4080 units that nobody wanted to buy – although judging by these Steam stats, that plan would have worked.
The simple fact is that while Nvidia’s new GPUs are great, no one really needs them. DLSS 3 is coming to the previous generation of Nvidia GPUs, and AMD’s price reductions for its RX 6000 cards are also a sight to behold; why drop $800+ on a GPU when you can get a 4K capable (with upscaling enabled anyway) card like the RX6800 for under $500? Those cheaper GPUs don’t get a chance to do that set your PC on fireor.
But maybe I worry too much. While the RTX 4080 may have been the sixth most-purchased GPU in February according to data from Steam, the RTX 4000 cards are nowhere near the most used in the study. The actual the top ten list is populated almost entirely by Nvidia’s budget xx50 and xx60 cards, four of which are older GTX models. The most popular next-generation card is the RTX 4090 (understandably, since it launched first) all the way down at position 56, with a weak 0.31% of users.
Keep it up, gamers. We don’t need those stupidly overpriced GPUs – I stuck with my trusty GTX 1060 for years and before that I gamed on a bulky old laptop with a GTX 950M. As always, vote with your wallet. Come on Nvidia; give us the RTX 4050 already.