Given the lukewarm reception of the GeForce RTX 4060 series, and the equally disappointing Radeon RX 7600, uptake of these GPUs has been understandably low. Looking at the latest Steam Hardware Survey, though, things appear more dire than you might expect.
Even now, almost six months since its launch, the GeForce RTX 4060 series still falls short of being the best graphics card options for budget builders, with previous generation pixel pushers presenting better overall value. In fact, it appears that a much more expensive Nvidia GPU is proving surprisingly more popular among Steam users.
Looking at the Steam Hardware Survey for November 2023, both the number of PCs rocking a GeForce RTX 4060 Ti and its non-Ti sibling have fallen to less than 1% each. This fall has created room for the GeForce RTX 4090, a card more than five times the price of the 4060, to become more popular than either budget GPU.
That the RTX 4090 has steadily proven popular thanks to its clear status as the absolute best graphics card on the market for sheer power is no surprise, but for it to still be used more than a card that’s so much more affordable is still a surprise.
This is all despite the RTX 4060 price having fallen in recent months, with plenty of Black Friday discounts also knocking significant chunks of its price. However, given the timing of the latest Steam survey, it’s possible many of those Black Friday buyers won’t yet be appearing on Steam’s lists. It’s possible next month’s results will tell a very different story.
Did you take up any Black Friday deals on low to mid-range graphics cards? If not, you can find our current recommendations for the cards you should be looking to buy in our best graphics card guide. Our current preferred pick for more affordable Nvidia GPUs is the RTX 4070 while AMD’s RX 7800 XT is a great choice as well.