Valve’s monthly hardware survey data for March 2026 is in, and it contains a couple of numbers worth dwelling on. Linux has now crossed 5% market share among Steam users for the first time, and the 16 GB system RAM configuration is seeing a notable jump in adoption. Keep in mind that the data is collected on a sampling basis, and things like Chinese New Year in February can end up skewing the results.
According to the March 2026 Steam Hardware Survey data, we’re seeing the following trends:
RTX 3060 retakes the top spot. After February’s anomalous RTX 5070 blip, the RTX 3060 is back at #1 with approximately 4.1% share (down slightly from 4.6% in February but consistent with January). This is its “rightful” position and reflects the enormous installed base of Ampere-era mid-range cards that still dominates the Steam population.
RTX 50 series is growing slowly. The RTX 5070 reverted from its anomalous 9.42% in February back to 2.87% in March, which is exactly where it stood in January. This supports the theory that February’s figures were a sampling artifact rather than a real surge. Across the RTX 50 series, the 5070 leads at around 2.87%, followed by 5060 (~2.42%), 5060 Ti (~1.67%), 5070 Ti (~1.55%), 5080 (~1.34%), and 5090 (~0.42%). The 50 series is accumulating share gradually but is not displacing the Ampere or Ada generations in any meaningful way yet, primarily because of supply constraints and elevated pricing.
AMD RDNA 4 remains essentially invisible. The RX 9070 appears at 99th place with a 0.16% share. The RX 9060, 9060 XT and 9070 XT don’t appear at all. Part of this is almost certainly AMD cards being lumped under the generic “AMD Radeon(TM) Graphics” category, which sits at around 2.4% in 9th place, but even accounting for that, AMD’s discrete GPU presence on Steam is historically weak.
VRAM capacity is trending up. 16 GB VRAM configurations jumped to approximately 21.53% share, a +3.27% change. This is a meaningful generational shift, driven by RTX 50 series cards shipping with 16 GB as standard at the mid-range and the growing VRAM demands of modern titles.
System memory seemingly trended down. This is the most dramatic data point in March. 32 GB configurations collapsed by approximately 20.31%, dropping to 36.62% share. Meanwhile, 16 GB jumped to 40.97%, overtaking 32 GB as the most common configuration for the first time in recent memory. It’s got to be one of two things. The first being that everyone with 32GB of ram in February decided to take some profits off the table and sell half of it in the used market or it’s a sampling anomaly that will sort itself out next month.
Linux hit 5.33%, up from 2.13% in February and 3.38% in January. This is the highest Linux share ever recorded in the Steam Hardware Survey.
Windows 11 vs. Windows 10 saw a dramatic shift. Windows 11 was up over 10%, Windows 10 down approximately 15% month-over-month. Given that this is almost certainly another sampling artifact rather than a real mass migration, treat it with the same skepticism as the RAM data. However, if the shift really did happen, it means that Microsoft’s Jedi mind tricks in last month’s dark pattern based upgrade screen worked quite well.