After months of losing ground to AMD, Intel's CPU share among PC gamers is growing

The Steam Hardware & Software Survey results for January 2026 show Intel regaining ground in the CPU space after several months of Ryzen growth.

After months of losing ground to AMD, Intel's CPU share among PC gamers is growing
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TL;DR: AMD's Ryzen CPUs have steadily gained market share among PC gamers, reaching 43.34% in January 2026, while Intel has regained some of that lead by holding onto 56.64%. Upcoming launches from both companies, featuring advanced cache technologies, promise intensified competition in the gaming CPU market throughout 2026.

It's no secret that AMD's Zen-powered Ryzen CPUs have not only been growing in popularity over the years but have also become the CPU of choice among PC gamers, with processors like AMD's Ryzen 7 9800X3D outperforming Intel's lineup when it comes to pure gaming performance.

After months of losing ground to AMD, Intel's CPU share among PC gamers is growing 2
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This has been reflected in Valve's monthly Steam Hardware & Software Survey results. As the data here is limited to people who use Steam to play PC games, it reflects current hardware trends amongst gamers. Thanks to the success of AMD Ryzen CPUs over the past couple of years, AMD has been slowly gaining market share in what has traditionally been an Intel-dominated space.

The latest Steam Hardware & Software Survey results for January 2026 show that Intel remains in the lead with 56.64% CPU market share, followed by AMD at 43.34%. Over the past year, AMD's CPU market share has gained 0.5 to 1.0% each month, but as 2026 kicks off, Intel has surprisingly regained some ground.

And by some, we mean 0.25%. Now, this might not sound like much, but it could signal the beginning of a shift in which Intel and AMD are battling it out, each with close to 50% of the CPU market share among PC gamers.

And the competition is expected to heat up later this year, with Intel launching its next-gen Nova Lake-powered Core Ultra 400 Series of desktop processors, and AMD launching its next-gen Zen 6-powered Ryzen 10000 Series (or whatever it ends up being called). Both architectures will apparently lean into large cache capacities ala the Ryzen X3D lineup, pointing to both companies eyeing PC gamers as key customers.

It'll be interesting to see how the market share changes in the lead-up to these next-gen launches and whether or not Intel will regain more ground or AMD will continue to rise with its Ryzen CPUs.