Steam, 6 and 8 core CPUs are a favorite of gamers
Steam
As you know, our guide to the best PC processors is not just a vademecum to help you choose the best processors for your desktop PC. It is also a support to introduce you and make you discover the latest solutions in processor construction, in order to give you an address on which solution might best suit your needs. The monthly hardware survey of Steam, Valve's infamous digital store, further confirms the guidelines of our guide: during this first part of 2021, in fact, six and eight-core CPUs were used by a large number of users , proposing to be the “heirs” of the dual and quad core families.What is the reason for this success, even more extraordinary if we consider the strong increases caused by the shortage of microconductors? We believe that it is due to AMD's choice to “invade” both the desktop and laptop markets with hexa and octa-core CPUs developed on Zen architecture. A strategy that Intel, in the face of the successes of the competition, has chosen to replicate in full. As a result, hexa-core CPUs are among the best processors on the market, with excellent price-to-performance ratios and great gaming performance on both desktop and laptop PCs.
Before analyzing the Steam survey data, two important disclaimers:
The survey is not mandatory, so it does not represent the entire audience of the digital store. Unfortunately Valve has not disclosed how many of its users have chosen to participate, making it possible to give us an indicative idea of the representativeness of this data; The survey combines both desktop and mobile CPUs. We know that the market is roughly split between 46% of desktop PCs and 54% of laptops, but these are only guesses: the Steam survey does not help us to extricate ourselves. At this point we refer you to the data referring to the CPUs, which you find above and you can also check at this address. We note that quad-core CPUs continue to be the most popular solution among platform users, occupying 41.61% of market share. A result that, contextualized over time, is indicative of a slow decline: -0.56% compared to previous months. Hexa-core CPUs are in second place, occupying 30.01% of the market. Interestingly, the trend in popularity, equal to + 0.53% compared to February and a remarkable + 3% compared to November 2020. At this rate, we expect hexa-core processors to reach quad-core market share by end of this year.
By shifting our attention to octa-core chips, we also notice an increase in diffusion here: they occupy 12.23% of the market (+ 0.28% compared to February and about + 2% compared to November 2020). They have nearly caught up with dual-core CPUs, which hold 13.38% (down -0.36% from last month). However, as highlighted in a tweet by user Chairman Jeb! , since the end of 2017, the popularity of six- and eight-core solutions has been steadily growing. Right now, 8-core chips are neck and neck with dual-core CPUs in popularity, and are expected to surpass the dual-core market share core very soon. Octa-core chips are still a long way from competing against quad-core CPUs, which still maintain market share leadership.
Overall, the slow decline of dual and quad-core CPUs is inevitable too due to increasingly multi-threaded workloads. We will see if, in the future, hexa and octa-core will compete against each other: a possibility that seems distant to us, even taking into account the probable increase in popularity of 10, 12 and 16 core processors.
One of AMD's best hexa-core CPUs is the Ryzen 5 5600X, which is perfect for gaming. It's available on Amazon, don't miss it!
‘Outriders’ Has Now Surpassed Borderlands 2 And 3 All-Time Highs On Steam
Outriders
Steamcharts/People Can FlyOutriders continues to have a deeply impressive debut as a new IP, and the one place where we can actually gauge playercount, Steam, shows that it’s passing by some big-name competitors.
After two days of server issues, things were mostly resolved yesterday, allowing Outriders to break its original launch day high of concurrent players. And that has now put it ahead of not just Avengers, Square Enix’s other looter that had five times fewer max players, but also Borderlands 2 and 3. Here are the comparable games in the genre on Steam, with a few others like The Division 2, Anthem and Godfall not on there.
I guess it should be noted that Borderlands 3 in particular actually debuted on the Epic Store first, and may have been a lot higher had it not come to Steam later, but still, the story stands, this is an extremely solid debut for Outriders, and while we don’t have console numbers, it stands to reason that the Xbox Game Pass deal especially has allow for some high numbers there.
Outriders
People Can FlySquare Enix has notoriously high sales standards, but I do wonder if we’ll get some figures in the next few days here. Again, with the Game Pass deal, new sales would be a bit lower than they would be without that, but that’s what giant checks from Microsoft are for.
One main difference between Outriders and most of these other games, however, is that it does not plan to release “live service” style content, so we may see those numbers drop off as players finish the game, and then ultimately, finish the endgame to their satisfaction. But People Can Fly told me in a recent interview they have no plans to “abandon” the game, which would mean potential, significant expansion content in the future. As in, Diablo 3 was not considered a live service, but we still got Reaper of Souls. Borderlands 3 also said it wasn’t doing the whole live service thing, and we got four DLCs year one. So yes, I think more Outriders content is coming.
As someone who live and breathes this genre, it is extremely refreshing to see a game land here and get so much right at launch. If your biggest problem is launch weekend server issues because too many people want to play, that’s not bad at all. And I would say that Outriders is having a better launch content-wise than most of the other games on this list and in this genre in generally. There are no glaring “okay they really did not learn X lesson from other games.” They set out to make Diablo with guns. They made Diablo with guns. It’s very fun. The end.
Alright, back to uh, playing more Outriders.
Follow me on Twitter, YouTube, Facebook and Instagram.
Subscribe to my free weekly content round-up newsletter, God Rolls.
Pick up my sci-fi novels the Herokiller series, and The Earthborn Trilogy, which is also on audiobook.
