Windows 11 has been around for just under six months now, and the amount of gaming PCs running Microsoft’s newest operating system continues to grow. Despite many opting to stay with Windows 10, the February 2022 Steam Hardware Survey indicates that nearly more than one in five users have jumped ship to the latest version of the OS.
A decline of 2.13% puts Windows 10’s market share at 75.69%, with nearly all of those users seemingly upgrading to Windows 11. Microsoft’s new OS enjoyed a small boost of 2.03%, and is now installed on 15.59% of all rigs and gaming laptops running Steam. However, this also marks a slight decline in the rate at which Windows 11 is spreading, compared to last month’s growth of 3.41%.
While Windows 11 isn’t enjoying the same kind of success that its ever-popular predecessor Windows 7 did, we’ll likely see it overtake Windows 10 as we get closer to 2025, when Microsoft will officially end support for the operating system. Its TPM system requirement is also likely stifling growth, but this should be resolved as users upgrade to their gaming CPUs and adopt newer motherboards.
Looking to other notable developments in the Steam hardware survey, 50.55% of the platform’s users now have 16GB of gaming RAM. We could very well see this amount of memory become the new standard in the next few years, with Xbox Series X and PlayStation 5 consoles both sporting the same capacity. So, make sure to keep your eyes on future videogame system requirements, so your system doesn’t fall behind.
Meanwhile, 1440p gaming monitors are on the cusp of breaking double-digit market share, growing by 0.49% for a 9.68% total. Given that Nvidia GeForce 60 and 50 class graphics cards make up the majority of users’ graphics cards on Steam, the resolution’s smaller share compared to the enormous 67.46% of 1080p isn’t too surprising. It’ll likely be a case of when rather than if QHD displays can overtake FHD, as GPUs become more powerful with each new generation.