The 5970 specifies that it requires PCIe 2.1 x16 to function. If I buy a mothoerboard with 4x PCIe 2.0 slots - and crossfire support - will 4x5970 GPUs work for mining? What about 2x5970 GPUs? Basically do the x16, x8, x4 and 2.1 vs 2.0 settings bear any meaning on my motherboard? I'm thinking of going with this one: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813130223 |
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Say I'm working with a 5 year old computer.... 1.0 Ghz Single Core...
Will that affect my hash-rate at all if I am only using poclbm to generate coins?
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true, thanks!
Can anybody else attest to this assumption?
I have the cash and the desire to purchase the fastest hashing board that I can.
Has anybody purchased the 5970 4GB? What is your average hashrate?
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Can anybody comment as to their Mhash/S rates for either of these two cards?
Are they the exact same?
Does the size of the memory on a card matter at all for the hashing calculations we are performing?
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If you're a developer and would like to participate in our Four Hour Bitcoin Hackathon event this Saturday... You can connect to it virtually, via Skype, etc. Just RSVP here: http://www.meetup.com/bitcoin/events/16901022/ and you can contact us! Can you elaborate on the etc..? I live in Toronto, Canada. I'm quite eager to start coding/hacking around with bitcoin. But I don't really like skype. Will this be recorded/any lectures I could watch/follow along with afterwards? |
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Say I send an email money transfer (these are popular in Canada) to my friend.
The bank's software that handles email money transfers forgets to remove the money from my account. But still adds it to my friends.
He is now $100 richer. And I am no poorer. Because of a software glitch.
This is entirely plausible to me.
Does it happen? How do they catch it? What can it's (presumably negative) effects be on the currency as a whole?
EDIT: Yes Jim Hyslop, you were correct!
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I have a question about taxing and how easy it is to find me.
...
But seriously, how can Bitcoin become ubiquitous without dealing with the tax issue? If it ends up displacing USD or whatever currency is in the country of interest, then the government would essentially get no funding because it is nearly impossible for them to figure out who owns which bitcoins, how me depositing to my "savings" wallet is any different from a commercial exchange, and if specific bitcoins are still even "in" the country or not. Like it or not, at least some taxation is necessary, so I'm trying to see how bitcoin can succeed when the global scope and decentralization makes it practically impossible to tax? (If this information is out there, please let me know. I've pretty much been reading about bitcoins all week and this doesn't seem addressed.) The government will probably start to regulate/enforce tax deductions on all (low level) employee paychecks. The people who own the businesses and own the country still get away with paying relatively low/no taxes. And it's back to your regularly scheduled program. |
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Before something can be a store of value, it needs to have value. Gold gained this initially through being wanted for use in jewelry. The only way bitcoin can gain value, is by proving its worth as a useful (or even best) means of electronic payment.
This is a good point. Can bitcoin be a reliable store of value (as it currently is) without being supported by its use as a highly convenient electronic payment method? Can something be established solely as a store of value? Where does the value come from? I'm guessing it being a highly convenient store of value... But I can't wrap my head around it to be convinced that it can be enough... What do billionaires pay bankers in Switzerland million dollar fees for? To store value for them, secretly. So yes, simply being a safe way to store a value seems to be enough to sustain bitcoin alone. And I'm not saying we should totally forget getting bitcoin accepted as a form of payment... but it will be much much easier a task once bitcoins are worth $10 to $100 each. |
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Personally, I'm not looking for a store of value. I want a low-cost, non-reversible, resilient means of Internet payment. Bitcoin does that better than gold or silver, so that's why I work towards its success. Indeed. Currencies, in general, make for poor forms of savings. That's not why they exist. Bitcoin exists as an Internet cash equivalent, and if performs that function very well. If you are looking for a store of value, there are much better choices. Gold is not currency. Not typically at least. I'm talking about gold bullion. What most gold investors purchase and deal in. Nobody is seriously investing billions of dollars buying $500 gold coins... |
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Personally, I'm not looking for a store of value. I want a low-cost, non-reversible, resilient means of Internet payment. Bitcoin does that better than gold or silver, so that's why I work towards its success. I want all of this as well. I'm just saying I think it would be easier to tackle a simpler problem first (getting investment in this great idea) and more beneficial to all of our overall goals. I guess this is one of those "what came first" conundrums... there are solid arguments for both sides. |
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Most everybody's gold is held in a vault. You rarely get to touch it. But you don't have to. You know you can't take a bar and go buy a car. But you don't care.
I expect if I walked into a car dealership able to pay for a car in gold they would gladly accept it if it meant a sale. Try it. Unless it's obviously 10x the car's value or something... they'll tell you to take it to a bank first. Even if it was 10x the car's value. How would a car dealership know it was real 24k gold? If it was recognized gold bullion coins and I walked in there and had a plausible reason for why I wanted to do the transaction that way, why should they say no and lose a sale? They would do a thousand jumping jacks on the showroom floor upon request, or bring in a masseuse to rub you down while you signed the papers, if you seriously convinced them that's what it took for you to buy the car from them, as silly as it sounds. How would the car dealership know it was 24K gold? How do they know that when they hand me the keys for a test drive, I'm not going to just drive off and never return? I'm sure they'd make sure they had some sort of recourse before accepting such a deal (after rolling their eyes etc.) You're talking about minted gold coins there. Not gold bullion. Yes, a minted gold coin is legal tender. But that is not what I was referring to. I meant gold in terms of bullion/bars/what most of it is held in. |
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Ok I think I'm getting it now.
So they all basically use the same parts/specs/chipsets/etc... but certain companies allow differing levels of overclock-ability?
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So many choices - all of them create ATI 5970 cards... which one is best? Or are they all identical products simply with another name slapped on them and according price?
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FLOPS are completely irrelevant, since the hashing algorithm uses fixed point calculations.
You could not be more wrong by looking at the FLOPS rating of a card.
Ok, so where are the FPOPS ratings?!  |
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I suspect the average age of this forum to be somewhere around 20 years of age.
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Another major hurdle I foresee as plaguing bitcoin is it's irreversibility of transactions.
You're only looking at it from the buyers side. What about the seller? You can add escrow on top of BitCoin but it's hard to add irreversibility on top of credit cards. There are several ways to do escrow. Look at ClearCoin for one example where you place your money in the trust of a third party until both sides agree the sale has gone OK. But you can also set up BitCoin to support a form of escrow without needing a third party to hold your coins in the meantime. They only get involved if there's a dispute. Chargebacks provide something a bit like escrow or mediation, except the CC companies always side with the buyer and not the seller - so it's not a very high quality mediation. The reason people are told to never send via Western Union is because that form of payment is overwhelmingly used by scammers, partly because it's irreversible but partly because it's one of the few forms of payment that work in the parts of the world where the scammers live. CC Companies do not always side with the seller in my experience. I have fond memories of a few hours spent on the phone to my company which confirm this. Look, guys, I'm not trying to ruin your spirits or bash bitcoin in any way. I simply thought it would make more sense to add some value to the currency first, before we both with trying to get anybody to spend it. Yes, you're right. We could try to create our own banks, our own bitcoin credit cards, we could integrate bitcoin with visa, mastercard and all of the local debit cards in the world... but I think we will die trying. Without any real value in the system at least... why would visa/banks/anybody even look at us when the average value of the entire currency is only a few million bucks? |
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Most everybody's gold is held in a vault. You rarely get to touch it. But you don't have to. You know you can't take a bar and go buy a car. But you don't care.
I expect if I walked into a car dealership able to pay for a car in gold they would gladly accept it if it meant a sale. Try it. Unless it's obviously 10x the car's value or something... they'll tell you to take it to a bank first. Even if it was 10x the car's value. How would a car dealership know it was real 24k gold? |
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I think it would be a much easier and saner a goal to achieve first (making bitcoin an accepted store of value), before we strain the community too much in trying to tackle an incredibly competitive payments market. I mean... those companies work on margins of fractions of a percent. They have ties with big banks and government, most of whom most likely won't want to deal with us - at first at least.
In general, I share some parts of your view but... Competitiveness? I don't know about your country, but in mine, I have to pay more than 20% to government if I sell something. I think we can do better. Sorry for the double posts guys... But I am no good with multi-quote. I don't believe that circumventing government taxes is going to help our cause at all. In fact I think it will be our downfall. If your government charges too high of a tax bracket or other ridiculous fees there are already ways around this. |
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Why try to change the steam engine from what it already is? A water pump. Taking the pumping market first is a much saner goal than trying to tackle the incredibly competitive motive power market. I mean, those horse breeders and stables work on margins of fractions of a percent. They have ties with big canal operators, stagecoach companies and government, most of whom most likely won't want to deal with us - at first at least.
I like your quip, but.... That's all it is, a quip. Horse breeders did not work on fractions of a percent. And... This isn't the 1800s. |
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Thanks for all of the replies guys.
Just what do you think they're benchmarking exactly then on that website in my OP?
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