AMD GPUs fight back, with the Radeon RX 9070 making a surprise entry in the latest Steam Hardware Survey

It has almost become the stuff of legend, just how small and ever-shrinking AMD's share of the graphics card market has become, and there's no finer example of that than the inability of the company's RX 9000 series to make any impact on the Steam Hardware Survey. Valve's monthly register of the hardware used by Steam gamers has been completely devoid of AMD's latest GPUs since their launch nearly a year ago. However, this month, that finally changed.

In the Steam Hardware Survey for December 2025, which has just been released, the AMD Radeon RX 9070 managed to sneak into the top 100 cards used on the platform, coming in as the 96th most-used option. This puts it just ahead of the AMD Radeon RX 5500 XT and just behind the Intel HD Graphics 4600 - the integrated GPU in many Intel CPUs.

Plenty of other AMD GPUs occupy higher spots on the list, with the RX 7600 XT in the 49th spot, two positions ahead of the RX 7900 XTX, and the AMD Radeon RX 7800 XT sitting at 29. However, no other RX 9000 series cards make the list, with the top current-gen card, the RX 9070 XT, and AMD's latest mid-range option, the RX 9060 XT, nowhere to be seen.

This slow success for its latest cards is also a trend reflected in Nvidia's GPUs, despite the company's options otherwise dominating the top of the chart. The RTX 5070 is the top-ranked RTX 5000 series option, sitting in 11th, while the RTX 5060 is in 21st position.

Instead, it's Nvidia's older chips that continue to rule the roost. The RTX 3060 returns to top spot, with 6.53% of Steam users using the two-generation-old, mid-range card. Meanwhile, laptop and desktop versions of its successor, the RTX 4060, take up positions two and three. Even the ancient GTX 1650 still manages to maintain its spot in the top five.

This general trend of a slow uptake of new cards and older cards staying in top positions for a long time isn't so much a suggestion that newer models aren't selling, but it just goes to show how long it can take for market share to build up and how slowly some gamers upgrade. After all, the Steam Hardware Survey covers gamers all over the globe running all sorts of PCs, from ancient to cutting-edge.

This is also why you tend to see mid-range and budget cards dominate the top spots, as the majority of PCs users aren't able to afford flagship GPUs or any generation, let alone the current. Indeed, this pattern has only grown as GPU prices have skyrocketed. It's still only a few years since flagship GPUs were $500, not the $1000+ prices of today.

Back to the RX 9070, and as we explore in our AMD Radeon RX 9070 review, there's good reason that AMD's second-tier GPU is the first 9000 series model to make an impact on the Steam chart. It offers a great balance of performance, features, and power consumption, with only its launch price seeming a little high at the time. However, with real-world prices for the RX 9070 XT and other competing GPUs having been much higher than expected, the RX 9070 has ended up being a great choice. You can also read our best graphics card guide for more of an overview of the current state of the graphics card market.

This might only be the first small shoots showing signs of a comeback for AMD in the graphics card market, but with GPU prices expected to rise during the first half of 2026 - we're already seeing RTX 5090 cards hit well over $3,000 - it could be a great opportunity for AMD to make even more of a dent, if it can consistently offer a cheaper alternative.