Nvidia's GTX 1650 is now the most popular graphics card used by gamers on Steam, displacing the GTX 1060 for the top spot, according to Valve's latest hardware survey looking at the specifications of a sample of its users.
That's a big deal because the GTX 1060 has held the #1 spot on Steam's GPU chart (opens in a new tab) for a long time, so it's kind of surprising to see a newcomer take the crown. Well, it's not a newcomer, as the GTX 1650 is still an older graphics card, but you know what we mean.
The GTX 1650 now holds the top spot with 6,27% of the Steam user base having this GPU in their PC, beating out the GTX 1060 who has 5,77%. The GTX 1650 gained 0,66% in the November survey, while the GTX 1060 fell sharply 1,85%.
In third place we find the Nvidia RTX 2060 with 4,64%, which also fell sharply, losing 1,46% compared to the previous month.
The card that made the biggest gain in November moved into fourth place, namely the RTX 3060 laptop GPU, which rose by 1.24% to 4.63%, actually, within a hair's breadth of stealing third place from the RTX 2060. .
Analysis: Was sales surge helped by Black Friday PC cuts?
So the GTX 1060 was eventually knocked out of the top spot on Steam, but it had to happen eventually. It was actually replaced by a lower graphics card, as you probably know because the GTX 1650 isn't quite as fast as the 1060 for gaming frame rates at all levels (although it's no slouch, it's drifting for sure). .
That's hardly a surprise, though, because at TechRadar, during the shopping spree that marked Black Friday week last month, we noticed that many budget desktop PCs and laptops running the GTX 1650 sold out thanks to good deals. on these machines. . That will have helped drive the numbers in part, no doubt, and also the people who pulled the trigger on the standalone GTX 1650, which also had a weird case. And, of course, you can't buy the GTX 1060 anymore, not off the second-hand market (or ship one from China or something).
Realistically, buyers looking for an affordable Nvidia graphics card would be better off sticking with the GTX 1660, which packs a little more punch than the GTX 1060, rather than stick with it like the 1650 does, but sales are likely to come. driven by inclusion. of 1650 on prebuilt PCs and laptops, as mentioned. The 1660 is definitely worth spending a little extra money on if you can, for those considering a budget-level graphics card upgrade.
If you're considering such an upgrade to the GTX 1660, do you think it, or one of its supercharged variants, the Super or Ti, might want to go fast? Mainly because rumor insists that Nvidia is removing all of these builds, so they may not stay on shelves much longer (same goes for the RTX 2060 too).
If true, that will leave the GTX 1650 the sole occupant of Nvidia's low-end spectrum. Well, there's also the 1630, but that's one GPU you want to avoid, trust us, so we could see it gain more momentum. Steam charts in the future.
As a final remark related to the fact that the RTX 3060 laptop GPU is making huge strides in the Steam rankings, if you take the RTX 3060 desktop card that has a 3,41% share and add it to 4,63 % of the mobile version, you get a total share of 8.04% for the RTX 3060 as a whole. Which makes it the most popular graphics card when mobile and desktop versions are combined. Furthermore, we expect this GPU to grow with market share in the future as well, given that the desktop RTX 4060 is nowhere in the offing (although the laptop version may be closer).
Today's best graphics card deals
Via VideoCardz (Opens in a new tab)