Windows 11 has surpassed Windows 10 to become the most used operating system amongst gamers using Steam.
Steam’s hardware survey statistics for August show that Windows 11 was used by 50.8% of gamers using Windows PCs, up 3.4 percentage points on July’s figures. Windows 10 fell back to 48.7%, a drop of 3.3 percentage points on the month previous.
The milestone has come embarrassingly late for Microsoft, given that Windows 11 has now been on the market for almost three years and that PC gamers are far more likely to have up-to-date hardware than the general computing population.
Indeed, Statcounter’s worldwide Windows market share figures show that Windows 10 was still being used on almost two thirds (64.2%) of Windows PCs in July, with Windows 11 still yet to command a third of the market on 31.6%.
Windows 10 has just over a year left of official support, coming to an end in October 2025. However, given its enormous installed base and Microsoft’s long history of pushing back support deadlines, it would be no surprise to see that extended into 2026 or beyond.
Gaming PC Hardware In 2024
The Steam stats reveal further details about the state of the average gaming PC in 2024.
The stats reveal that AMD continues to eat into Intel’s processor dominance, with AMD now claiming precisely a third of the market, with an increase of 0.7% in the past month alone.
The average gaming PC now has 16GB of RAM, with almost half of the PCs anonymously surveyed by Steam now carrying that complement of memory. More than 30% have 32GB of memory and 3.3% of the PCs surveyed have a whopping 64GB of memory to play with.
The graphics card installed inside PCs is highly diverse, as you might expect. Nvidia dominates the list, with the GeForce RTX 3060 the most popular individual card type, albeit with only 5.5% market share.
And when it comes to screen resolution, Full HD is still far outweighing the sharper 4K. Full HD (1,920 x 1,080) is the primary display resolution of 57.3% of the Windows PC screens surveyed by Steam, with 2,560 x 1,440 the next most used resolution with a 20.2% share.
Mac Gamer Stats
Macs wouldn’t be the first choice for many gamers, despite Apple’s recent attempts to promote the Mac as a serious gaming platform.
Steam’s survey shows that the MacBook Pro is the Mac model most likely to be used for gaming, with 34.3% of Mac gamers choosing the powerful laptops. The MacBook Air follows with 20.9%, with the iMac right down at 6.2%.
Mac gamers are likely to have less memory than PC owners, with 8GB of memory found on 45.2% of Macs using Steam, and 34.2% using 16GB. It’s worth pointing out that the unified memory used on modern Apple Silicon Macs is more efficient than PC RAM, meaning it doesn’t require quite as much to enjoy similar levels of performance.
Mac gamers are also likely to have a lower screen resolution, with 1,440 x 900 the most used resolution. That’s likely a reflection of Mac gamers primarily using laptops rather than desktop machines.
Steam’s statistics are a useful barometer for developers, giving an indication of how many gamers will be able to meet their games’ required specification.
