The Gaming PC Upgrade Cycle: Why 8GB GPUs and 6-Core CPUs Are Finally Losing Ground
The latest Steam Hardware Survey for September 2025 reveals a significant shift in the PC gaming landscape, as players increasingly move away from the long-standing standards of 8GB GPUs and 6-core processors. The data shows clear momentum toward more powerful hardware configurations that better handle modern game requirements, signaling that the era of 8GB VRAM as the gaming baseline may finally be ending.
The survey, which collects data from millions of Steam users worldwide, provides one of the most accurate snapshots of what hardware actual gamers are using. The trends observed this month suggest that both game demands and user preferences are evolving toward more capable systems.
The 8GB GPUs Decline: A Market Responding to Game Demands
Despite major 2025 GPU releases like the RTX 5060, RTX 5060 Ti, and Radeon RX 9060 XT still launching with 8GB of memory, the market share for this configuration dropped by 1.37% to 33.66%. While 8GB remains the single most common VRAM capacity, the consistent decline indicates gamers are recognizing the limitations of 8GB for modern titles.
The biggest beneficiary appears to be 16GB graphics cards, which showed the fastest growth among memory configurations. This shift makes practical sense—games increasingly require more VRAM for high-resolution textures and advanced features, and 16GB cards typically require less tweaking and optimization from users to maintain stable performance.
CPU Evolution: The Move Beyond 6 Cores
In processors, another longstanding gaming standard is fading. Six-core CPUs, which have dominated mainstream gaming builds for years, dropped below 30% market share for the first time. Meanwhile, 8-core processors continue their steady climb, now representing over 25% of systems.
This transition reflects both the increasing availability of affordable 8-core processors and growing recognition that modern games can effectively utilize additional cores, especially for background tasks, streaming, and multitasking while gaming.
AMD’s Steady Gains Amid Intel’s Product Gap
The survey also shows AMD continuing its market share growth, now reaching 41.31% with a 1.15% increase in just one month. This trend appears likely to continue given Intel’s current product lineup challenges. With Intel’s next-generation Nova Lake processors not expected until 2026 and no direct response to AMD’s dominant Ryzen 9000X3D gaming processors, AMD has a clear runway for continued growth.
The Big Picture: An Evolving Gaming Standard
While 8GB GPUs and 6-core CPUs still represent approximately one-third of the market—a substantial share that ensures developers will continue supporting these configurations—the clear downward trajectory suggests we’re witnessing a generational shift in what constitutes a “mainstream” gaming PC.
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The increased sampling frequency noted by some users also suggests Valve may be improving the survey’s accuracy, making these trends more reliable indicators of the actual gaming hardware landscape.
Source: steampowered, wccftech