Gamers are finally flocking to Windows 11 after 3 years

By Jacob Roach Published November 4, 2024

Windows 11 is getting a lot more popular lately. In the latest Steam hardware survey, Valve clocked that 51.97% of its user base is now using Windows 11, which is a 4.28% increase compared to last month and the highest share the operating system has ever seen, despite being readily available for over three years.

Windows 10, the second-most popular operating system on Steam, fell by 2.71%, and now makes up 45.95% of the users Valve surveyed. Just a couple of months ago, when Valve released its August survey results, Windows 11 overtook Windows 10 for the first time in the hardware survey. The gap is only widening now, with the share lost by Windows 10 going almost directly to Windows 11. Earlier this year, Windows 11 adoption was actually down on the Steam hardware survey, with some claiming that Windows 10 offered better gaming performance.

It’s not exactly surprising that gamers are migrating. Microsoft is retiring Windows 10 on October 14, 2025, just shy of a year from now. From there, Microsoft is offering an extra year of security updates, but only for users who pay $30. By now, most PCs can install Windows 11 for free, including years of security updates, so it makes sense to jump ship before Windows 10 is officially retired.

There’s no doubt that Windows 11 is better than Windows 10 now, but the operating system still has its problems, especially for PC gamers. Just recently, AMD’s Ryzen 9000 CPUs showed surprisingly poor performance at launch, which was largely the result of Windows 11. The newest 24H2 update fixed the issues, but these types of bugs and oddities are common with Windows 11 and PC gaming hardware, even three years after release.

Although the Steam hardware survey isn’t always the most accurate source of data month-to-month, we’ve seen a consistent trend toward Windows 11 since the middle of this year. Elsewhere in the survey, the results are a bit strange. For instance, the RTX 3060 saw a 1.53% increase over last month, now representing 7.24% of Valve’s user base. That doesn’t make a ton of sense given that the RTX 3060 isn’t one of the best graphics cards you can buy anymore, and the newer RTX 4060 offers better performance for around the same price.

If you’re a recent convert to Windows 11, make sure to check out our guide on how to optimize Windows 11 for gaming. Compared to Windows 10, the newer OS has a ton of additional features for PC gamers, including the latest Xbox Game Bar — which is important for CPUs like the Ryzen 7 7800X3D — and DirectStorage.