Steam's October hardware survey has landed, and it basically performed a round trip compared to the previous month's results.
In September, I noted that the massive 4.77% jump in 32GB RAM systems was likely due to an influx of Chinese players, as it lined up with a 7.42% growth in the language on Valve's platform.
That appears to have been true. The 32GB tier took a massive 5.16% dive in October, falling back to 37.06%.
At the same time, the 16GB tier moved back into top position with a 3.60% increase to arrive at 41.42%. Users polled with Simplified Chinese as their main language dropped 9.41%.
The bigger news for many of our readers is the jump in Windows 11 adoption, which continues at a fairly steady pace.
In October, Windows 11 users on Steam climbed by a respectable 1.17% to 72.51% overall. This caused Windows 10's share to drop 2.5%, hitting 21.11%.
Steam's hardware survey is not mandatory, and results depend on who decides to opt in. This can skew results from month to month, as we saw in September 2026.
This is a better improvement than September, which saw just a 0.37% rise for Windows 11. In the same month, Windows 10 also rose by 0.71%.
Are gamers suddenly abandoning Windows 10 at a faster pace? Probably not. What's more likely is another correction to do with the polled sample. Windows 10 is still holding onto just more than a fifth of the overall OS share among Windows, Linux, and macOS.
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