Recently, a very interesting video showing the top 15 most used graphics cards in the past 15 years was made by a YouTube channel named TheRankings. All the information in this video was collected from Steam Hardware Survey. Here it is:

Graphics cards rankings in early years

Right from the start of the video, since Apr 2004, NVidia is already at the top with the GeForce4 and GeForce4 MX, making up over 28% of all Steam users at the time. However ATI came fairly close in rivaling with NVidia throughout 2004 and even took the top spot in 2005. Everything then changed in the second part of 2007. NVidia released the GeForce8800 and took the lead all the way until 2010.

Graphics cards
Rankings at the beginning of 2004.

In the next 2 years, in the race between AMD and NVidia, the tide slowly lean toward NVidia. There was a bummer in 2012 when Intel got into the survey. Not stopping there, the Intel HD Graphics 4000 and Intel HD Graphics 3000 held the top two spots for about 3 years.

2014 and 2015 were tough years for AMD. While Intel and NVidia continue to take the top spots in the race, AMD starts to fall off, even out of top 15 in late 2016. From then, NVidia began to play their own game. Their GTX series are extremely powerful, especially with the GTX 1060 having the most success and being the most used graphics card on Steam until this day.

How the race ended

Graphics cards
Most updated rankings on Mar 17th 2019.

After seeing the video, we can all agree that NVidia has the best graphics cards for gaming. At the same time, their domination in this market doesn't seem to end anytime soon. Let's hope a worthy opponent for NVidia will show up some day in a near future.

For your information, there's a catch in the average specs box in the bottom right corner. In 2019, the average resolution is still 1859 x 1046, which is less than modern standard at 1920 x 1080.

To sum up everything, this video is for everyone from a newbie to a hardcore PC gamer. It delivers great reference and information that anyone can find it useful.