Ebay desktop PC core 2 duo (to make sure it has PCI-e) $90

then install

Ebay Ati 5830 (for 260-300MH/s) $90

or whatever your budget will handle https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Mining_hardware_comparison

You need to use Ati cards, never nVidia. 

LiteCoin is Bitcoin 2.0 fixed!

They fixed the 51% security bug,
they fixed the transaction speed,
they fixed the problem of dedicated hardware having an unfair mining advantage.

LiteCoin is the place every GPU miner will go soon!

I think ASIC greed will shrink the Bitcoin network and may even kill it if no cheap ASICs appear.

Try 12.11beta

Distributed Denial Of Service attack. A hacker has control of many machines over the internet and uses them to flood a site with web traffic until is slows down.

I don't see the bitcoin price dropping while Avalon have a monopoly and keep raising prices on their ASIC.

Butterfly labs seem so far away from shipping. See their engineering video http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4C4bgho5JSI

But yeah if Butterfly ever managed to ship cheap ASICs the price would drop I suspect.

LiteCoin is the biggest threat to Bitcoin.

It's the only altcoin I would recommend and is where most GPU miners will end up after the ASIC invasion.

I've never used them but https://btc-e.com seem to have a LTC exchange.

MtGox needs to open an exchange for it.

They've been a few weeks from shipping since October 2012!

The video shows they don't even have an ASIC capable of mining yet.

They're talking about maybe shipping 30Gh/s Little Single units running at 2-3x power design.

Every other product will be so far outside it's power spec it'll need a complete redesign!

The mini Rig would blow the fuses on your house power box,
there's no way the Jalapeño will run on a USB power brick,
the 60Gh/s Single will be so hot with 8 chips close together that it'll melt itself.

Butterfly labs has big problems

this is their engineering video posted on Youtube yesterday

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4C4bgho5JSI

It looks a loooong way from being a shippable product.

Avalon are shipping but are asking crazy money 88 to 101 BTC, and they only take payment in BTC!

Oh and CIA's investment arm In-Q-Tel (added to my previous post) 

The Treasury has a $550bn fund called the Exchange Stabilization Fund to manipulate currencies against the dollar.
http://www.newyorkfed.org/aboutthefed/fedpoint/fed14.html

The Fed is also printing new money through POMO/TOTO at rate of $14-112bn per month to buy assets too.
http://www.newyorkfed.org/markets/tot_operation_schedule.html

CIA is reported to be investing in the Bitcoin project through http://www.iqt.org/ after a couple of Bitcoin founders went to see them.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/In-Q-Tel

Bitcoin CIA Connection Video
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K5VC58gjnjY#t=3m33s

It's profitable to use GPU while the BTC price is this high but it may not last.

In that case you switch to mining LiteCoins which is designed in such a way as to stop FPGA/ASICs

Ati 5830's give a fast ROI at 260-300MH/s and only £60/$90 outlay.

LiteCoin is designed to make it hard for anyone to design an FPGA/ASIC to gain unfair mining advantage.

So GPU mining will survive on LiteCoin.


I recommend 5830s faster (260-300MH/s),cooler,quiter and similar price £60/$90.

AMD/Ati, Stream Processors and good cooling.

https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Mining_hardware_comparison

lol I thought you said a beginners unit.   7970 is pro.

Beginners I'd recommend starting with 5830s because they are cheap £60/$90 for 260-300MH/s

Then you could keep some money aside for an ASIC.

https://localbitcoins.com/

or

www.ebay.co.uk

The last PCI cards were Ati 3870s and no you cannot make PCI-E work without changing the motherboard.

As far as I'm aware StarTech PCI-E to PCI adapters are to run old PCI cards in new PCI-E slots, not the other way around.

Amazon already announced the Amazon Coin for Kindle back in Feb but it's not going to be any more ground breaking than PayPal as a centralized ring fenced currency.  

You can get a 5830 off ebay for about £60/$90 that'll do 260-300MH/s or just wait for Butterfly Labs to release their ASICs.

did you install opencl drivers?