Tech Report's results for PC hardware survey, revealed

OP got gaped.

The last time I took part in the steam survey was 7 years ago,it's laughable that you ass hats actually think the steam survey is accurate.

A smaller scale survey done every 3 years would provide more accurate results than an automated hardware detection that could have been done anytime in the past 10 years that cannot tell the difference between used and unused hardware,which is exactly the reason you idiots think everyone is using hd4000 integrated gfx.

But what does that matter right?

I couldn't tell you the last time I took the Steam survey. What I would like to know about it though, is how often it gets updated? I haven't been asked to participate for a long time.

@GarGx1: it gets updated whenever the user chooses to take it again.

According to the steam survey I'm still running a core 2 quad q6600 and a gtx 8800

Soo accurate :p

Voted my specs, interesting results

What funny is lengths people will go to in order to discredit the survey since they don't like the results. Do you have any evidence that the survey reuses old data? If that were true, wouldn't there be more old GPU's represented? Do you have any proof that the survey detects integrated GPU's that aren't in use? And what kind of logic would lead you to believe that the occasional survey pulling from a pool of tens of thousands could be more representative than one done in a pool of tens of millions?

So what if you last took part 7 years ago? What makes you so special that a survey is useless if it doesn't include you?

There's also one more advantage to the Steam survey, it doesn't let you lie like the Tech Reports one does.

except we don't know how the steam survey is conducted

We may not know every last detail, but we do know a bit. We know it pulls the samples from the members of Steam. We know it's a software that scans the selected computer and submits the results. And we know it's done monthly.

We can also make a few minor assumptions. It's in Valve's best interest for it to be accurate since then it could be used by developers (of which they are one) to have a good idea of the capabilities of their target market. Therefore, old data would be completely useless and is likely discarded. Given that the new data is collected monthly, it is unlikely that any surveys are carried over month to month, much less the 7 years naz99 seems to think is.

Steam only collects samples from those willing to give it and it does not ask every user every month

Are there any surveys that aren't voluntary? Why would valve need to ask every user every month? You only need a very small percentage of the population to get an accurate representation. If Steam has 80 million users then you would need about 16,000 survey participants for accurate survey results. http://www.custominsight.com/articles/random-sample-calculator.asp

Highly unlikely that Tech report is even remotely close to the number of participants that the steam survey has and Tech Report is for upgrade enthusiasts, not the joe average pc gamer.

So if they had 16,000 macbook users that would be accurate?

That result would be comparable to lightning striking the same spot 50 times.

The survey formula was created by mathemeticians and survey experts, you think you know better than them?

Every survey calculator site will come up with about the same results.

Never said that.

Then what are you saying? Your mac reply implies that you think 16,000 respondents aren't enough.

No, it means that number of respondents isn't everything

of course coincidentally cranler has disappeared and a relatively new account has taken up where he left off

Lol. Newxerxes makes claims and backs it up with survey sites and you still think you know more about surveys.

Blind fanboyism at it's best. Has any hermit here not drank the pc fanboy kool aid?

And? So what?

he's talking about group sizes, I was pointing out that it's not just the size that is important

Wow your guys' usernames are quite the coincidence

Don't question lostrib, he's a survey expert.

Never said that

What else is important that these survey sites have overlooked then?

Why is it that understanding statistics is so hard for some people?

What difference does it make when you took your last survey?

A smaller scale survey done by a site for hardware enthusiasts is going to be more accurate?

Why are people who are using gpus buying motherboards with integrated gpu's anyways?

According to Steam, I game on my wife's pathetic laptop ^^

Steam survey is probably the worst source you can come up with when you want to find out what people are gaming with NOW.

So you installed steam on your wife's laptop, agreed to do a survey and this makes the survey null and void?

That's why steam survey's enough people to get an accurate count each month. If they weren't getting enough participants each month then we'd all be seeing more requests.

@magicalclick:

Increase your font size because I can't read it on my 8k monitor while I have Ice Age 3 running in real time in the background.

According to Steam I have minus (- 1GB) of Vram, instead of 3GB per GPU.

I don't get why it is so hard for steam to get the correct reading, how CPU-Z and GPU-Z are doing it accurately.

Many motherboards come with it. When you buy an Intel motherboard, it's almost guaranteed to have Intel HD graphics included. On the laptop side, many laptops use integrated graphics for non-gaming functions. The discrete GPU is used only while gaming. After the game app is closed, the laptop switches back to the integrated graphics.

Steam is considered a non-gaming app. Left on its own, it'd probably detect the integrated graphics being used.

not really an accurate representation of most pcs lol steams survey would be closer since it has so many users