And with so many tiers of hardware available, from entry-level to the sorts of rigs used to power starships, PC gaming has never been so good.<\/p>\n
But just what is everyone running these days? We honestly have no idea, but Steam\u2019s most recent Hardware Survey<\/a> does a pretty good job of shedding light on the matter.<\/p>\n Steam Hardware Survey Overview for July, 2015.<\/p><\/div>\n For the foreseeable future, PC gaming is all about the GPU. Games almost always hit your GPU\u2019s wall long before they run into a CPU bottleneck. So we thought we\u2019d take a look at the top 5 most used GPUs according to Steam.<\/p>\n Intel\u2019s embedded HD Graphics 4000 solution is in virtually everything, so its position at the number one slot isn\u2019t all that surprising \u2013 it\u2019s been there for months now.<\/p>\n And just by the way, if you\u2019re using an Intel HD Graphics 4000 chip to power your gaming experience, then you have our sympathies. It can\u2019t be a very smooth or picturesque experience.<\/p>\n We will mention that the Intel HD Graphics 4000\u2019s dominance at the top of the list may be down to the popularity of Intel\u2019s Ivy Bridge<\/a> and Haswell<\/a> CPUs.<\/p>\n Steam\u2019s survey software may simply be detecting the HD graphics solutions as components in use, even if a discrete GPU is being used.<\/p>\n Steam Hardware Survey Graphics for July, 2015.<\/p><\/div>\n Either way, what surprised us most, however, is that NVIDIA\u2019s really rather capable GTX 970 is sitting at number two \u2013 it may even be number one if our HD Graphics theory holds up.<\/p>\n Keep in mind that it\u2019s a $300+ card (and averaging at R5, 000 locally). That\u2019s a lot of gamers using what is actually a rather pricey card.<\/p>\n Granted, it offers fantastic value for money, allowing you to play practically every game at maxed out settings at 1080p and even experience 4K gaming, but still.<\/p>\n What it means is that a lot of PC gamers have a solid gaming PC, a lot more than we expected.<\/p>\n Following on from the GTX 970 is the GTX 760, still quite a decent card but nowhere near as capable.<\/p>\n For those who are curious, AMD\u2019s first entrant into the list is at the number six spot with one of the Radeon HD 7900 series \u2013 Steam doesn\u2019t distinguish which.<\/p>\n Throw in the fact that the most popular RAM size is 8GB and that Ivy Bridge and Haswell CPUs are very popular, and we\u2019re very impressed with where PC gamers have gotten to considering \u201chow much cheaper console gaming is\u201d.<\/p>\n Suffice it to say, your gaming PC probably doesn\u2019t suck. Good going elitists. Keep that torch lit.<\/p>\n NVIDIA announces GTX 990M: to be more powerful than GTX 980M SLI<\/a><\/p>\n Samsung\u2019s V-NAND process means 4TB SSDs for the home PC<\/a><\/p>\n From an R9 Fury to R9 Fury X: tool unlocks the cores of select Radeon cards<\/a><\/p>\n![\"Steam](\"http:\/\/mygaming.co.za\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/08\/Steam-Hardware-Survey-Overview-July-2015.png\")
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![\"Steam](\"http:\/\/mygaming.co.za\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/08\/Steam-Hardware-Survey-Graphics-July-2015.jpg\")
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\nYou may want to check out our guide on building a gaming PC for less than R10, 000 here<\/a>.<\/h4>\n
Let’s keep the hardware conversation going<\/strong><\/h3>\n