AMD Falling Behind: Radeon dGPUs Absent from Steam's Top 20

[AusWolf]

If Steam made the Survey 100% without consent then there would be an outcry of spying. You have to understand how the Survey works. It's not info that you provide yourself because some people would make mistakes about their hardware. If you agree to be surveyed then Steam scans your PC and records your info. That way it is accurate.

If Steam started scanning gamer's PCs without permission people would have a fit about snooping.

Edit: It's actually pretty rare to be selected. I have only been chosen twice in over 15 years. There is a way to force Steam to survey you to. Just Google that and do it. Steam has that available as an option. Then your hardware will be in the mix too.

Sure, but why do you have to be selected? Why can't Steam ask every single user whether they want to take part in the survey or not? Who is selected anyway? What is the selection process based on?

 

[64K]

Sure, but why do you have to be selected? Why can't Steam ask every single user whether they want to take part in the survey or not? Who is selected anyway? What is the selection process based on?

It's completely random.

Valve uses the Survey results for it's own business purposes so they want gamers to participate. One sure way to make most gamers not want to participate is to nag the hell out of everyone every month. Can you imagine if Steam asked you to participate month after month, year after year? Of course a lot would just opt out but then we would be right back where we are now with a less than 100% database. The only way to get a more accurate database is to scan every gamers PC every month without their consent looking for changes in hardware. I don't think Steam would be that foolish and if they ever did then the Survey results would never be made available publicly again.

 

[AusWolf]

It's completely random.

Is it? (Rhetorical question)

Valve uses the Survey results for it's own business purposes so they want gamers to participate. One sure way to make most gamers not want to participate is to nag the hell out of everyone every month. Can you imagine if Steam asked you to participate month after month, year after year? Of course a lot would just opt out but then we would be right back where we are now with a less than 100% database. The only way to get a more accurate database is to scan every gamers PC every month without their consent looking for changes in hardware. I don't think Steam would be that foolish and if they ever did then the Survey results would never be made available publicly again.

But they don't assess and publish survey results every month, right? I see nothing wrong with being asked to participate every 6 months or so with the option of saying no. It's still far less intrusive and annoying than being bugged with cookie policies on every website I visit. I do get where you're coming from, though.

 

[64K]

Is it? (Rhetorical question)


But they don't assess and publish survey results every month, right? I see nothing wrong with being asked to participate every 6 months or so with the option of saying no. It's still far less intrusive and annoying than being bugged with cookie policies on every website I visit. I do get where you're coming from, though.

Yes, the Survey is conducted every month and the results made available every month. There is even one guy that has a chart for every month going back for years and years. Bear in mind the Survey is for Steam's use and not for our use. They just make the results available as an extra for us that are curious.

 

[kapone32]

How can we trust the Steam Charts when the 7900XT is number 3 selling card on Newegg.com?

https://www.newegg.ca/sapphire-pulse-11323-02-20g-amd-radeon-rx-7900-xt-20gb-gddr6/p/N82E16814202431

Read some of these reviews and realize that the narrative is strong. It has changed from you can't trust Steam Charts to them being a reason to promote Nvidia. I mean it's like the Steam Deck or the Ally don't exist. Especially the Steam Deck that has been in the top 10 of Global Sales on Steam since release. The Doom and Gloom is so crazy in a world where the 7900XT is still $949 at it's lowest.

 

[sLowEnd]

How can we trust the Steam Charts when the 7900XT is number 3 selling card on Newegg.com?

https://www.newegg.ca/sapphire-pulse-11323-02-20g-amd-radeon-rx-7900-xt-20gb-gddr6/p/N82E16814202431

Read some of these reviews and realize that the narrative is strong. It has changed from you can't trust Steam Charts to them being a reason to promote Nvidia. I mean it's like the Steam Deck or the Ally don't exist. Especially the Steam Deck that has been in the top 10 of Global Sales on Steam since release. The Doom and Gloom is so crazy in a world where the 7900XT is still $949 at it's lowest.

You can trust AMD's own earnings reports that their gaming graphics sales have been lagging

AMD Reports Third Quarter 2024 Financial Results

Browse AMD’s company-wide and financial press releases.

ir.amd.com

 

[Prima.Vera]

If I was in dire need for a relatively affordable, efficient, but still gaming-capable GPU, I wouldn't mind getting a 4060 at all.

For gaming on a HD 1080p monitor is all good.

 

[JustBenching]

Even if AMD had competitive products in every segment, they don't have the amount of mindshare, marketing budget, or the money to pay developers to use their tech that Nvidia does.
Most people are just going to buy Nvidia because they think they need Nvidia features, even though options from AMD and Intel exist.

That's not true. A crap load of AAA games are amd sponsored. Probably more than Nvidia. The problem is, what technology can these amd sponsored games support? The cards aren't really good at RT and FSR is inferior to dlss so you are kinda left empty handed. There is no feature you can put into these aaa games to make AMD cards more desirable.

 

[AusWolf]

That's not true. A crap load of AAA games are amd sponsored. Probably more than Nvidia. The problem is, what technology can these amd sponsored games support? The cards aren't really good at RT and FSR is inferior to dlss so you are kinda left empty handed. There is no feature you can put into these aaa games to make AMD cards more desirable.

Do you want AMD to produce proprietary technologies, like Nvidia does with DLSS? I don't.

 

[JustBenching]

Do you want AMD to produce proprietary technologies, like Nvidia does with DLSS? I don't.

I want them to stop focusing in promoting stuff they are not good at. A lot of their sponsored games and marketing push is about RT, when in reality those games run rt effects at 1/4th the resolution just so they can pretend they are on par with nvidia. Why? Just drop it altogether and focus for example on AFMF, a feature that at least on par if not better than Nvidias.

Also,the launch prices on their cards are just bad man. They need to do something about that.

 

[Macro Device]

Yet, the 6700 XT and 6750 XT are generally acclaimed cards, while the 7600 is regarded as an abomination on the GPU industry. Why exactly?

0. 7600 is worse/not better than 4060 in EVERYTHING. Navi 22 GPUs, however, did occasionally even beat 3070 in outlier tasks despite 3060 Ti being a direct competition.
1. Navi 22 GPUs are basically getting more and more advantage the higher the resolution goes. At 1080p, 6700 XT VS 7600 is almost a draw. At 4K, many games are still playable on 6700 XT and outright mess out on 7600.
2. There's not much discount you get buying a 7600.
3. Navi 33 isn't true RDNA3 and doesn't offer full +% IPC potential. Irrelevant for 99% audience, just a cherry on top.

In the current state of affairs, here in Russia at least, I'd recommend scraping for a Navi 21 GPU instead of getting anything Navi 22 because it's basically <100 USD difference and a lot more performance going on (6800 non-XT overclocks just fine if you're lucky). Unless, of course, you totally need something that only NVIDIA GPUs can do.

Talking from my 6700 XT experience here. Truly great hardware but AMD are driving me nuts with their driver pickiness and utter inability to stop copycatting, getting their stuff together and inventing something that DOESN'T WORK ON NVIDIA GPUS AND REALLY IMPROVES YOUR EXPERIENCE. FSR being hardware agnostic is cool but to actually compete, one needs to offer something the competition don't. And this something should be useful for average Joes, so some screenmaxxing übertechnology that only matters for quadruple displays owners doesn't produce much additional marketshare.

 

[AusWolf]

I want them to stop focusing in promoting stuff they are not good at. A lot of their sponsored games and marketing push is about RT

Huh? I have seen AMD push many games, but not by their RT support.

Also,the launch prices on their cards are just bad man. They need to do something about that.

That I agree with. Like I said earlier (or maybe in another thread, I'm not sure at this point), there's nothing wrong with offering an admittedly cheaper solution and scoring some easy sales on the midrange market instead of fruitlessly trying to compete with the top dog. I hope AMD will realise this with the RDNA 4 launch, and position it accordingly. If so, they'll have a buyer in me.

0. 7600 is worse/not better than 4060 in EVERYTHING. Navi 22 GPUs, however, did occasionally even beat 3070 in outlier tasks despite 3060 Ti being a direct competition.

Sure, but the 4060 is regarded as an abomination as well. My question is that if these two cards are so close to the 6700 XT in the gameplay experience they offer, then why does everyone think they're so bad?

1. Navi 22 GPUs are basically getting more and more advantage the higher the resolution goes. At 1080p, 6700 XT VS 7600 is almost a draw. At 4K, many games are still playable on 6700 XT and outright mess out on 7600.

Don't tell me you want to game at 4K with a 7600 / 6700 XT. Anno 2024, both cards are good 1080p / moderate 1440p cards at best.

2. There's not much discount you get buying a 7600.

You get warranty.

3. Navi 33 isn't true RDNA3 and doesn't offer full +% IPC potential. Irrelevant for 99% audience, just a cherry on top.

Exactly, irrelevant for basically everybody.

Talking from my 6700 XT experience here. Truly great hardware but AMD are driving me nuts with their driver pickiness and utter inability to stop copycatting, getting their stuff together and inventing something that DOESN'T WORK ON NVIDIA GPUS AND REALLY IMPROVES YOUR EXPERIENCE. FSR being hardware agnostic is cool but to actually compete, one needs to offer something the competition don't. And this something should be useful for average Joes, so some screenmaxxing übertechnology that only matters for quadruple displays owners doesn't produce much additional marketshare.

I'm bought with their flawless Linux support as I've just recently ditched Windows (I've had enough of the constant nagging and the OS doing things without my approval). And the usually lower price.

Edit: Why would they want to invent something that doesn't work on Nvidia? Being an asshole isn't the only way to win a race, and it's not in AMD's business politics, either. They're more about open-source, open standards, to which I'm infinitely more sympathetic than to Nvidia's proprietary scumbaggery.

 

[Vayra86]

I still think Steam survey's are dumb as hell. No reason to just not do steam survey's for everyone and get the actual numbers instead of sampling. I never get steam survey requests for example and have AMD gpu's on every item I own.

Every time you connect your steam account to a new hardware ID it could ask you for a survey; if the hardware ID isn't already known in Steam's survey, I believe.

When I built a new rig I instantly got the question, anyway.

I still don't quite believe its a realistic view on the market for gaming though. We have to appreciate the fact that gaming is tiered; there are types of gamers and therefore types of systems one can game on. Casual gamers might not get further than point and click and browser-type games, they can do that on IGPs. Other games simply won't run on them. Etc. Now consider the fact almost everyone games in some way shape or form and suddenly the Steam Survey looks a lot more representative - but not representative of the actual gaming market that we tend to think of when we think of gaming.

 

[Macro Device]

but the 4060 is regarded as an abomination as well.

Simply because it's a rip off on top of a rip off. Slash 30 USD and 60 watts and pretend it's okay that 4 GB VRAM alongside a couple bytes of bus got KIA is a sub-par practice.

My question is that if these two cards are so close to the 6700 XT in the gameplay experience they offer, then why does everyone think they're so bad?

Because they're worse than alternatives which are terrible as it is. You know what being worse than terrible means.

Don't tell me you want to game at 4K with a 7600 / 6700 XT.

Anything that's not heavier than Cyberpunk 2077 (99+ % games overall) is totally playable at 4K with some FSR/XeSS or even sans on a 6700 XT. Some of these games start misbehaving once 8 GB and/or 128-bit bus proves abysmal so Navi 33 gets rekt. Tested it in person. Maxing 60 Hz out is only an issue in UE5 compost and generally misoptimised titles. If you've not yet beaten your games from 2010s then why is 6700 XT @ 4K a problem?

You get warranty.

6750 GRE (which is basically a renamed 6700 XT) ain't completely extinct and they oftentimes are sold for comparable quid. Brand new, same warranty. Navi 33 makes zero sense at this point, unless you crave for some AV1 encoding (not sure if N33 even supports that).

Edit: Why would they want to invent something that doesn't work on Nvidia?

"Do the same but better" is long overdue. So long that I doubt even 2x better cuts it. AMD need to create something that's exclusive to their hardware that can be described as "Why did I live without it?" so they become an actual competitor and not a lazy copycat that only produces worse (sometimes terribly worse) FOSS/FLOSS equivalents of NV features and tries to compensate for it by adding a couple gigs of VRAM. These are handy but when DLSS at Performance allows more visual fidelity than FSR at Quality these gigs become moot in 99% games. Couple dozen dollar advantage... also falls off when you witness better graphics with substantially better framerates at the same time on a similarly priced piece of Team Green hardware.

And I didn't even begin with AI/CUDA. And I won't. Do these +10% FPS per $ at pure raster with no upscaling matter? Of course. Do they matter THIS much? Not really.

 

[AusWolf]

Simply because it's a rip off on top of a rip off. Slash 30 USD and 60 watts and pretend it's okay that 4 GB VRAM alongside a couple bytes of bus got KIA is a sub-par practice.

Because they're worse than alternatives which are terrible as it is. You know what being worse than terrible means.

Anything that's not heavier than Cyberpunk 2077 (99+ % games overall) is totally playable at 4K with some FSR/XeSS or even sans on a 6700 XT. Some of these games start misbehaving once 8 GB and/or 128-bit bus proves abysmal so Navi 33 gets rekt. Tested it in person. Maxing 60 Hz out is only an issue in UE5 compost and generally misoptimised titles. If you've not yet beaten your games from 2010s then why is 6700 XT @ 4K a problem?

6750 GRE (which is basically a renamed 6700 XT) ain't completely extinct and they oftentimes are sold for comparable quid. Brand new, same warranty. Navi 33 makes zero sense at this point, unless you crave for some AV1 encoding (not sure if N33 even supports that).

So the 6700 XT is okay, but the 7600 and 4060 that perform quite similarly at the target resolution of such cards (1080/1440p) are hot garbage because they're limited by the 8 GB VRAM at 4K?

"Do the same but better" is long overdue. So long that I doubt even 2x better cuts it. AMD need to create something that's exclusive to their hardware that can be described as "Why did I live without it?" so they become an actual competitor and not a lazy copycat that only produces worse (sometimes terribly worse) FOSS/FLOSS equivalents of NV features and tries to compensate for it by adding a couple gigs of VRAM. These are handy but when DLSS at Performance allows more visual fidelity than FSR at Quality these gigs become moot in 99% games. Couple dozen dollar advantage... also falls off when you witness better graphics with substantially better framerates at the same time on a similarly priced piece of Team Green hardware.

And I didn't even begin with AI/CUDA. And I won't. Do these +10% FPS per $ at pure raster with no upscaling matter? Of course. Do they matter THIS much? Not really.

I totally disagree. I do not want any proprietary technology in gaming. At all. Zero. Nothing. Nada. I want the freedom of choice when I upgrade and not the feeling of "if I'm buying A, I'm missing out on X, but if I'm buying B, then I'm missing out on Y". Being locked out of a technology by brand choice is a purely legal and marketing stunt, and I find it completely appalling.

 

[JustBenching]

Huh? I have seen AMD push many games, but not by their RT support.

Really? On every one of their presentations they are showing their new innovative RT performance in games like dirt 5, re village, and that other soulslike game that I don't even remember what it was called.

 

[TheinsanegamerN]

Do you want AMD to produce proprietary technologies, like Nvidia does with DLSS? I don't.

He never said that. You're injecting your own argument.

He's right, AMD's RT is almost two generations behind nvidia now, and FSR is just awful. Full of blurry text ad almost hallucinogenic color mixing at times. DLSS balanced has better image quality then FSR ultra quality does. It's just fact.

How about this: if AMD wants to make an open source DLSS, make it good?

 

[Macro Device]

So the 6700 XT is okay

Barely so.

but the 7600 and 4060 that perform quite similarly

Still worse. Sometimes worse enough for you to notice the difference with no FPS counter enabled.

are hot garbage

True.

because they're limited by the 8 GB VRAM at 4K?

Not quite. 6700 XT is better in ANY resolution in ANY game, unless RT is in question (there, 4060 has some edge; still irrelevant because performance doesn't exist on such settings). It doesn't matter that it's only better by a dozen percent, it's just better. It's enough.

I do not want any proprietary technology in gaming

Neither do I. I'm talking from their business survival perspective more than anything else. They missed all possible trains to catch up with NVIDIA without getting the hands dirty. So they need to breed some FOMO themselves, or they're screwed.
Of course, from the end customer's perspective, I want everything to strive on whatever hardware and said hardware to only compete in performance per $ and performance per watt but it's beyond impossible: this market has been totally monopolised about five or six years ago at this point. RDNA4 is to change absolutely nothing no matter how efficient and great this architecture proves to be. AMD are late. Dead man late.

 

[TheinsanegamerN]

How can we trust the Steam Charts when the 7900XT is number 3 selling card on Newegg.com?

https://www.newegg.ca/sapphire-pulse-11323-02-20g-amd-radeon-rx-7900-xt-20gb-gddr6/p/N82E16814202431

Being #3 on top sellers is just a statistic. How many cards were sold? Volume right now is likely a fraction of what it was 2 years ago, or a year ago. So, yeah, you sell 5 7900xts and get 3rd place on sales for the month. Fantastic. a year ago nvidia sold 500 4060s per month, at 3rd place. These cards are equivalent in place on the chart but not in total sales.

Just as an example.

Read some of these reviews and realize that the narrative is strong. It has changed from you can't trust Steam Charts to them being a reason to promote Nvidia. I mean it's like the Steam Deck or the Ally don't exist. Especially the Steam Deck that has been in the top 10 of Global Sales on Steam since release. The Doom and Gloom is so crazy in a world where the 7900XT is still $949 at it's lowest.

You're rading too deep into it. There is no "narrative". Some people have always trusted the steam survey, othes have never believed it, and some are skeptical. A tale as old as time.

If I go back to threads from 10 years ago about Steam survey results, guarantee the conversation is nearly identical to today.

Even if AMD were more competitive, I doubt it would change because the consumer is gonna buy whatever is advertised more. A similar thing happens with CPU's, the tech press went hard on AMD with Zen 5, yet went easy on Intel for not delivering on the all the hype over Arrow Lake. I think even if AMD had an amazing price/performance card that beat out a higher tier from Nvidia there would be complaints of the card not having a proprietary Nvidia feature.

This ignores history. Evergreen brought AMD to a 49% market share. When AMD was consistent with releases and maintained roughly nvidia performance every generation, they had no trouble selling. So long as they keep doing this wishy washy "oh were high end now were not now we are" thing they'll struggle to sell, because that does not inspire confidence.

I'm not sure what media you were reading, the ones I read lambasted intel for the poor showing and the 200 series basically being 14th gen but slightly slower.

 

[Vayra86]

I want them to stop focusing in promoting stuff they are not good at. A lot of their sponsored games and marketing push is about RT, when in reality those games run rt effects at 1/4th the resolution just so they can pretend they are on par with nvidia. Why? Just drop it altogether and focus for example on AFMF, a feature that at least on par if not better than Nvidias.

Also,the launch prices on their cards are just bad man. They need to do something about that.

For once we completely agree. Its so silly to see AMD gaming evolved and then needing a magnifying glass to identify what's AMD in this title at all, what's evolved here or why the logo appeared in the first place.

At the same time, you don't get an AMD logo when you fire up a console running their hardware.

Its so silly I can't even begin to understand if or why AMD even has a marketing and PR department. Its as if they themselves don't even know what their brand strategy is. Apparently its some strange combination of 'playing underdog' 'being the revolution' 'evolving gaming' and 'undercutting the competition with free game bundles' while first telling us they're 'not focusing on RT until it hits the midrange' and then when it has hit the midrange for a full gen and half, they pivot over to abandoning the high end altogether It also ties in with @AusWolf 's earlier point about trying to play the premium graphics price strategy with RDNA. Like... what the fuck? Your featureset doesn't even match, idiots.

Help me understand the madness lol

 

[AusWolf]

He never said that. You're injecting your own argument.

He's right, AMD's RT is almost two generations behind nvidia now, and FSR is just awful. Full of blurry text ad almost hallucinogenic color mixing at times. DLSS balanced has better image quality then FSR ultra quality does. It's just fact.

How about this: if AMD wants to make an open source DLSS, make it good?

Let me address these points separately:

AMD's lack of RT performance doesn't matter much when even Nvidia's RT performance is abysmal on anything less than a 4080. I'm not sad that I can't RT on my 6750 XT because I couldn't on a 3070 either. Whether or not RT is really such a significant and meaningful visual upgrade that makes it worth spending more is a separate debate, but I'm personally doubtful.

I don't care what anyone says, DLSS, FSR and XeSS are tools to get better performance out of ageing or lower end hardware when even low quality graphics options won't do anymore, nothing more. And that is a sign for me that the need for a GPU upgrade is imminent.

I'm sick and tired of responding to the mindless "oooh RT, aaah DLSS" comments everywhere, so let's leave it at that, shall we?

 

[Hecate91]

I totally disagree. I do not want any proprietary technology in gaming. At all. Zero. Nothing. Nada. I want the freedom of choice when I upgrade and not the feeling of "if I'm buying A, I'm missing out on X, but if I'm buying B, then I'm missing out on Y". Being locked out of a technology by brand choice is a purely legal and marketing stunt, and I find it completely appalling.

Exactly, there needs to be a standardized form of RT and upscaling every company agrees on, I hate that proprietary features are marketed as FOMO things you have to pay for or else your games will be unplayable.

That's not true. A crap load of AAA games are amd sponsored. Probably more than Nvidia. The problem is, what technology can these amd sponsored games support? The cards aren't really good at RT and FSR is inferior to dlss so you are kinda left empty handed. There is no feature you can put into these aaa games to make AMD cards more desirable.

I seriously doubt that, Nvidia has tons of sponsored games and pays many AAA game studios to use Nvidia features.
While RT performance could improve, I'd rather have slightly worse image quality with FSR as FSR isn't platform locked onto AMD cards. And if the TPU poll is anything to go by, gamers don't care that much about RT vs. pricing. I personally could care less about what graphics feature a game has, I buy games for the gameplay.

I want them to stop focusing in promoting stuff they are not good at. A lot of their sponsored games and marketing push is about RT, when in reality those games run rt effects at 1/4th the resolution just so they can pretend they are on par with nvidia. Why? Just drop it altogether and focus for example on AFMF, a feature that at least on par if not better than Nvidias.

Also,the launch prices on their cards are just bad man. They need to do something about that.

So you want them to stop improving and stop competing altogether, also AMD only markets RT for a few games, I definitely don't see them constantly pushing the RT marketing.
I don't like what AMD does with launch pricing either when they they could decrease prices a bit and maybe sell more, then again AMD can't win a price war against Nvidia. And you can thank Nvidia for setting the bar high on prices, thats how competition works when Nvidia has 88% of the market.

 

[Vayra86]

Exactly, there needs to be a standardized form of RT and upscaling every company agrees on, I hate that proprietary features are marketed as FOMO things you have to pay for or else your games will be unplayable.

There is one.
And AMD was in on it since Microsoft launched the DX12 Ultimate label. They just forgot to build the right acceleration for it. This is a typical case of AMD say but don't do, or put differently, AMD being godawfully slow implementing features, as usual.

Nvidia was faster. The only reason Nvidia can keep creating proprietary features is because they simply pay off, and part of the reason they're paying off, is because AMD is always in wait and see mode.

 

[Macro Device]

DLSS, FSR and XeSS are tools to get better performance out of ageing or lower end hardware

Or to max your ridiculously fast display out. I somehow have proved to be sensitive to that and gaming at 170 FPS is leagues more pleasant than gaming at <100 FPS and is just substantially better than 100–130 FPS. Even if I somewhat wasted visuals by upscaling artifacts. Smoothness rocks.
Of course I'd be happy to point blank game devs who make games an unplayable mess if you don't turn these things on or if you don't get yourself a severely overclocked 4090 and graphics ain't next-gen but implemented right, these tools are great and not to be abolished.

 

[JustBenching]

I don't care what anyone says, DLSS, FSR and XeSS are tools to get better performance out of ageing or lower end hardware when even low quality graphics options won't do anymore, nothing more. And that is a sign for me that the need for a GPU upgrade is imminent.

I'm sick and tired of responding to the mindless "oooh RT, aaah DLSS" comments everywhere, so let's leave it at that, shall we?

When it's usually people with higher end gpus that use them and people with lower end gpus being against them, doesn't it make you pause?