(Image credit: Gigabyte)

The latest Steam Hardware Survey is out, and an AMD RDNA4 architecture GPU has charted in the PC Video Card Usage tables. Despite AMD’s fanfared deprioritization of flagship GPUs to follow the mass market, the Radeon RX 9000 family’s entry into the chart has been a long time coming. Moreover, the RDNA4 Radeon has appeared with more of a whimper than a bang, turning up with just a 0.16% market share, still less than Nvidia’s 2014 GeForce GT 730.

It only just made it (Image credit: Future)

Your eyes don’t deceive – AMD’s only Steam Hardware Survey (SHWS) charted card is the RX 9070 non-XT. Does this show that AMD’s cheaper, slightly lower-tier model may be a sleeper hit for its amazing efficiency? I have a plain vanilla RX 9070 in my personal desktop, and am very pleased with its quiet, cool performance, so praise of this SKU might show a little bias.

Interestingly, though, AMD’s RX 9070 XT did indeed hit the SHWS in the December 2025 data, at 0.22%. It has now disappeared from view (under the 0.15% threshold for charting).

It has been approaching a year since the first RX 9000 graphics cards became available. We reviewed the RX 9070 XT and RX 9070 back in early March 2025. These 16GB VRAM cards were praised for strong mainstream performance at good MSRPs, with worthwhile improvements in AI and ray tracing performance. AMD released its RX 9060 XT (8 and 16GB VRAM) models in June last year, and also saw largely positive feedback (for the 16GB version, anyway).

It is worth repeating that, despite AMD’s mass market strategy and general positivity in reviews and on discussion forums, people are still buying into the GeForce ecosystem by default.

It looks better this way (Image credit: Future)

While we are kind of celebrating the first RDNA4 card charting in the Steam usage database with its 0.16% placing, the last-gen RTX 4060 gained 0.46% share. Moreover, the biggest gainer of the month was, predictably, the RTX 5060 with an increase of 0.72% in market share. If we sort the chart by gains in the last month, the RX 9070 rises from near the bottom of the chart to 6th place. Which isn’t so bad.

16GB VRAM adoption spurt

Another change that seems remarkable in the last month is the observed increase in Steam gamers backing GPUs with 16GB of VRAM. As per the numbers shown, those gaming on 16GB GPUs went up an impressive 5.85% in January 2026. Meanwhile, 12GB VRAM became 4.01% less prevalent, and 8GB VRAM, 3.11% less common.

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(Image credit: Future)

So, 16GB of VRAM looks set to move into second place in the graphics card memory charts, as early as February’s results. Unless there is another inflection or bump in the trends...

Last but not least, please remember that the SHWS figures aren’t definitive, as the disappearance of the RX 9070 XT shows. They are just an indicator of trends among active Steam gamers, snapshotted that month. Sometimes big events in the Steam marketplace, like a country being added to the survey, can nudge the results more than usual, and the way the charts are compiled is quite opaque. Other factors, like seasonality and big game releases, can also impact the data.

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Mark Tyson is a news editor at Tom’s Hardware. He enjoys covering the full breadth of PC tech; from business and semiconductor design to products approaching the edge of reason.