Steam’s October 2026 hardware survey largely reversed several sharp changes recorded the month before. Windows 11 continued to gain share, but the results showed little evidence of a broad shift to newer PC hardware.
Systems with 32GB of RAM fell 5.16 percentage points to 37.06%, after a 4.77-point increase in September. Meanwhile, the 16GB category rose 3.60 points to 41.42%, returning to the top spot. The share of respondents using Simplified Chinese as their primary language also dropped by 9.41 points, a change that may help explain the previous month’s swings. Steam’s survey is voluntary, so its results can vary with the participants polled.
Windows 11 increased by 1.17 points to account for 72.51% of Steam users on Windows. Windows 10 fell by 2.5 points to 21.11%. The report cautions that the movements may reflect changes in the survey sample rather than a sudden acceleration in users leaving Windows 10.
The graphics-card rankings also shifted back toward older hardware. The RTX 5070, which led in September with a reported 5.86% share, fell 2.3 points to 3.56%. The RTX 3060 became the most common GPU among respondents, rising 0.08 points to 3.62%.
Eight-gigabyte graphics cards featured among the leading configurations, while 1920-by-1080 displays accounted for 50.23% of respondents, up 2.32 points from the previous month. Taken together, the October figures suggest September’s increases in 32GB systems and RTX 5070 ownership were not sustained.
Sources: Windows Central.