Steam Survey shockwaves felt as proportion of 32GB RAM systems drops by more than 5% — the percentage of PC gamers with 1TB+ total storage also shrunk by nearly 5%

The latest Steam Survey appears to show that gamers blessed with systems packing 32GB or more RAM and 1TB or more storage are a dwindling breed. This survey is posted without comment by Valve, as usual, but appears to show a significant proportional rise in gamers using 8GB and 16GB RAM PCs, which occurs largely at the expense of the 32GB brigade. The latest stats also show a noticeable increase in storage capacity poverty in the last month. Are the symptoms of the AI industry-induced components crunch now becoming evident among the PC gaming public?

The AI-pocalypse delivered components crunch has been in the headlines for months but it is still jarring to see it impact the vast PC gaming landscape. When we’ve browsed desktop and laptop PCs for the best gaming PC deals over the past months, the trend is clear. Systems that look like they are designed for gamers or enthusiasts are now frequently fitted with just 16GB of RAM as standard, and also feature smaller storage devices that one might have expected. But to see the Steam Survey suggesting that the share of 32GB systems has now collapsed by -5.16% is startling. Only last month, 32GB was the most popular configuration among gamers according to the same survey.

RAM is probably the hardest-hit component segment of AI-driven demand so far. We maintain a RAM price tracking page at Tom’s Hardware and the current state of the market means that DIYers or upgraders need to spend about $250 for 16GB DDR5 or $450 for 32GB DDR5. Those prices change regularly, as well.

Moving onto the sudden recorded change in storage configurations in use by Steam gamers, and we see that folks with 1TB of total fixed storage space or above shrunk by 4.68%. As the categories are currently defined, this appears to show the reduction in the number of systems coming with either a 2TB and 4TB SSD as standard. That’s because the 750GB to 999GB category grew +2.36%, and Windows registers a '1TB' boot disk as a smaller (a quick check shows ours at 924GB). 250GB to 499GB total storage systems were also up a similar amount (+2.30%). Overall, it looks like systems being used for Steam gaming are increasingly fitted with these smaller capacity SSDs. Enthusiasts, gamers, and DIYers wanting to expand their storage at the best prices are advised to keep an eye on our frequently updated SSD price tracking page.

We are currently seeing some extraordinary things in the GPU market, with reports of RTX 5090 and RTX 5080 cards being removed from retail. In the Steam Survey this month the RTX 5080 is still at position 14. However, the joint most popular GPUs are the RTX 5070 and the aging RTX 3060 – both with 3.78% of the market.

We are aware that there are sometimes some strong undercurrents in the Steam Survey that cause unusual fluctuations in the figures. However, the numbers this month don’t look like they have been impacted by a Chinese user or Chinese internet café PC influx, which have previously shown odd trends (such as a rise in Windows 10 usage). Actually, the Steam Survey shows Chinese (Simplified) language users surveyed are sharply down this month, so the survey should more accurately represent the system configurations typical among gamers in the West.