Gamers Are Upgrading to Windows 11 Faster Than Ever
The latest Valve Hardware & Software Survey for May 2025 shows a steady rise in Windows 11 adoption among PC gamers. The OS gained 0.46% last month, reaching an all-time high of 58.3% usage on Steam.
Meanwhile, Windows 10 continues its decline, dropping 1.09% to land at 37% , as it nears its end of support in October 2025 . This widening gap suggests that more players are upgrading — either by choice or necessity — as older systems become less viable.
Even though it’s long unsupported, Windows 7 still lingers with 0.10% of users. However, with no official Steam updates and no free upgrade path to Windows 10, these users risk losing access to their game libraries entirely.
OS Market Share Snapshot:
- Windows : 95.45% (-0.65%)
- Linux : 2.69% (+0.42%)
- macOS : 1.85% (+0.23%)
While Windows remains dominant , Linux is gaining traction — especially among handheld gaming device users — due to better optimization and performance in some cases. In fact, Microsoft recently paused development on its own handheld console to focus on improving Windows gaming experiences .
Most Popular Hardware Specs (Steam Users):
- RAM : 16GB (43%)
- CPU : 6-core (29.79%)
- GPU : NVIDIA RTX 3060 (4.56%)
- VRAM : 8GB (33.67%)
- Display : 1080p (55.35%)
GPU Market Share:
- NVIDIA : 74.18%
- AMD : 17.62%
- Intel : 7.85%
CPU Market Share:
- Intel : 59.69%
- AMD : 40.31% (closing the gap)
You can view the full stats here: Steam Hardware & Software Survey – May 2025
