Sergiu » Techy etc http://sergiu.me.uk/wp ...the nth version Fri, 27 Nov 2009 21:00:07 +0000 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.8.6 en hourly 1 STEAM http://sergiu.me.uk/wp/archives/12 http://sergiu.me.uk/wp/archives/12#comments Fri, 27 Nov 2009 10:50:32 +0000 Sergiu http://sergiu.me.uk/wp/?p=12 I’ll admit that Steam is controversial – it provides a good and easy-to-use platform to digitally distribute software, but quite often the prices are higher than at retail, and some of the restrictions are, well, very badly thought out. But all that is a whole different area that I don’t want to approach.

However, it has allowed the great unwashed (or at least those curious enough) to take a peek inside what most people’s PC’s are made of. I’m talking about the Steam Hardware Survey – if you use it then you might’ve been prompted to allow results to be sent a few times. It all gets compiled and updated onto one, relatively easy to digest page, right here.

Why is it interesting? Well, it confirms that most people using Steam use Intel CPU’s and nVidia graphics cards, that DirectX 10 capable systems are on the rise, and that the single-core CPU is going out and quad cores are coming in strong.

But for me, the most interesting snapshot right now is the movement from Windows XP and Vista 32 and 64bit towards Windows 7 64bit – it just goes to show that Microsoft really have done something right with Windows 7, otherwise people wouldn’t be moving to it in these numbers. I’m not a huge MS fan, but I’m glad it’s happening.

WinTrends_Nov09

(image borrowed from the Steam Hardware Survey page)

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