Nvidia’s GTX 1650 is currently the most popular graphics card used by gamers on Steam, displacing the GTX 1060 from the top spot, according to Valve’s latest hardware survey that looks at the specs of a sample of its users.
This is a big deal as the GTX 1060 is ranked number one Steam GPU Ranking (opens in a new tab) for ages, so it’s a surprise when a newcomer takes the crown. Well, not a newbie per se since the GTX 1650 is still an older graphics card, but you get what we mean.
The GTX 1650 is now in first place with 6.27% of the Steam user base having this GPU in their PC, beating out the GTX 1060 which has 5.77%. The GTX 1650 gained 0.66% in the November survey, while the GTX 1060 fell sharply by 1.85%.
In third place we find the Nvidia RTX 2060 at 4.64%, which also fell sharply, losing 1.46% compared to the previous month.
Moved up to fourth place was the card that actually had the biggest increase in November, namely the RTX 3060 laptop GPU, which rose 1.24% to 4.63%, in fact a hair’s breadth away from stealing third place from the RTX 2060.
Analysis: Did Black Friday Discounted PCs Help Boost Sales?
So the GTX 1060 was finally pushed off the top spot on Steam, but it had to happen eventually. It’s actually been replaced with an inferior graphics card, as you probably know, since the GTX 1650 isn’t quite as fast as the 1060 in terms of frame rates across the board (while it’s not that far behind, it’s a bit of a drift for sure).
It’s no surprise, though, as here at TechRadar, during the Black Friday shopping spree last month, we noticed a lot of cheap GTX 1650-equipped desktops and laptops being sold thanks to good deals on these machines. No doubt this would partly help push the numbers up, as well as the people pulling the trigger on the standalone GTX 1650, which also had a strange offering. And of course it’s not like you can’t buy a GTX 1060 anymore, not outside of the used market (or shipped from China or something).
Realistically, buyers looking for an affordable Nvidia graphics card would be better off buying the GTX 1660, which has a bit more power than the GTX 1060, rather than pulling it like the 1650 does – but the likelihood of sales is driven by the inclusion of the 1650 in off-the-shelf PCs and notebooks as mentioned. It’s definitely worth spending a little extra cash on the 1660 if you can, for those looking to upgrade their graphics card at a budget level.
If you’re considering such an upgrade to the GTX 1660, remember – or any of its supercharged variants, Super or Ti – you may want to move fast. Mainly because the rumor mill insists that Nvidia is ditching all of these versions, so they may no longer be on the shelves (supposedly this also applies to the RTX 2060).
If true, the GTX 1650 will remain Nvidia’s only low-spectrum resident – well, there’s a 1630 as well, but it’s a GPU you want to avoid, trust us – so we can see it gain further momentum atop the Steam charts in the future.
As a recent observation related to the RTX 3060 laptop GPU making big gains in the Steam rankings, if you take the RTX 3060 desktop card which has a 3.41% share and add it to the 4.63% mobile version you get a total share of 8.04% for RTX 3060 overall. Which makes it the most popular graphics card when both mobile and desktop versions are considered. Furthermore, we expect this graphics card to increase its market share well into the future, given that the desktop RTX 4060 is nowhere in sight (although a laptop version could be closer).
By VideoCardz (opens in a new tab)