This guy got set up for brute force hashing with 4 hd 5970's. He has them all in 1-U rack but not mounted on mobo.  

http://blog.zorinaq.com/?e=42

The 5970's are separated off to one side using PCI-e 1x extenders that are modified to re-route power so that none of GPU power does go through mobo (instead of about 30-40%).

http://blog.zorinaq.com/?e=44

Saves money running more units off 1 mobo ...

Also mentions that the HD 6990 maybe coming out with about 28% more hash power than 5970, anybody confirm this?

Its a matter of matching the base load with intermittent draw. Nothing special just a bit of design, simple control system, a top-up heater element and some way to dump waste heat if need be.

Might be able to sell whole units as a going concern, mine your own bitcoins, heat your water with the same electricity ... imagine taking a hot shower on cold, wet night using the water from the roof-tank, the micro-hydroelectric power from the creek out back and knowing that the bitcoins are ticking over into an account somewhere down the hall.

So Mt. Gox is obviously acting on someone else's behalf, unless they have been scammed themselves, but how stupid would it be for the scammer to hold a large account at the place he is scamming.

Who is Baron's accuser here, who is Mt. Gox acting on behalf in blocking his account? Perhaps that party would have the balls to put their case out in public like Baron has had to prostrate himself in front of the baying mob?

They accuse this guy of stealing but won't show their face?

45K is not a large trader in the currency markets.

For those who need a re-adjustment of their perspective, many here it seems, over $4 trillion is traded daily in foreign currency markets.

Baron seems quite forthright, gives you addresses to chase everything you asked for .... where's mt. gox now?

Are they going to be posting bitcoin addresses so we can verify their trades are only done with "honest money"... I don't think so.... its a big can of worms chasing the money trail ... there is no where to stop but blind accusations and madness ... its not worth it and it is not what bitcoin should be about. This is very destructive for bitcoin reputation.

Yes, I don't think anybody is arguing it is right to help scammers .... but is it the job of bitcoins to also judge who are the scammers?

There can be some very grey, subjective lines drawn and then it is no longer money you are talking about but trading in favours, indulgences, power, etc.

Money needs to be objective or it is useless as money.

It is a tool for measuring worth not judging the colour of mens' hearts, leave that to between the man and the almighty.

Chalk one up for gold and scratch one off for bitcoin in my book. (i.e. not fungible).

I think you've got this backwards.

If the BTC exchange rate rises it makes 5970's more valuable in fiat dollars, which is what they are costed on when manufactured and market basis for sale (generally).

Think of it as the ratio of BTC a 5970 card can mine to the cost of the card in BTC ... it could asymptote to a constant over time, including a base electricity rate.

Yep, it opens many, many dangerous doors.

I'm not saying mtgox is bad, they may have good reasons for doing what they are doing but it is bad precedence to set for someone in the business of holding others money on account.

Why do you think money is fleeing western banking capitals? Seemingly arbitrary account freezings is the scariest thing out for prospective customers and you are quite right, no one has to use them!

What if someone sells coins in a legitimate sale and then turns around to Mtgox and claims they were stolen, what's he going to do then?

It's just terminology but people probably already have two or more "wallets" that they use differently. It just clarifies that the safe is the place where you can put large amounts safely and the wallet is where you can put small amounts that are easier to access and don't have as many overheads, back-ups, off-site copies, etc.

If you had one wallet with BTC 50,000 in it you are going to treat that a lot more carefully than the wallet with BTC 50 in it, no? Just easier to call one the safe and the other the wallet ... take it or leave it, just trying to put some words with concepts that already in practice.

Wallet, safe, vault ... straightforward translation from physical specie.

"Tainted" coins, traced transactions, justice delayed ... starting to smell like big gubmint "money" masquerading as something else, just saying.

If mtgox felt like he was receiving stolen property why didn't he just give it back and not deal with the guy instead of playing cops and robbers and freezing it into his own possession?

Money needs to be fungible to be widely accepted ... if some BTC is deemed to be "cleaner" than others then it is no longer fungible.

Of course, people shouldn't scam or steal or money-launder or sell slaves or whatever ... but it is not the job of the money to decide who is right and wrong, it is just an accounting token for facilitating trade and commerce, it is not legislature, police, judge and jury.

We need a blind signature layer so that BTC can be fungible and do a better job of being money. (Some digital sheriffs or bodyguards wouldn't go astray in this wild west either it seems ... or even a posse or two.)

Eventually I would like to see some bitcoin software featuring a SAFE and WALLET system.

Obviously, the safe stays at home on a system that has significantly higher security specs than the wallet.

By the same token, safes are designed to be harder to get into, even by the user, but hold more and are more rigourously backed-up.
Of the pair, the wallets are easy to open but only hold small amounts and can easily be moved around mobile devices.

Further out, there could be a VAULT for corporate holdings, or a vault for collective holdings held by a trusted security center for people who don't feel confident guarding their own safes.

Sturle, wow ... I was wondering about feasibility on this ... typical domestic hot water can be in 4-6 kWatt range ... about 7-8 HD 5970 cards ... combined heat and GPU power CHGPU solution (i.e. not CHP). Clever way to turn useless heater element resistor in hot water tank into GPU transistor and get computational power (bitcoins) as a bonus.

If you can run the chip at around 60-70 deg. celcius that would be fine for domestic hot water, is that what it comes off at with good lagging? I saw some people running them at 80-90 deg celcius but cooler is better right?

I know of at least two supercomputer installations that are liquid cooled but there are more for sure. Cray-2 was nick-named "Bubbles" http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cray-2

"The cards were packed right on top of each other, so the resulting stack was only about 3 inches high. With this sort of density there was no way any conventional air-cooled system would work; there was too little room for air to flow between the ICs. Instead the system would be immersed in a tank of a new inert liquid from 3M, Fluorinert."

And there is this http://news.cnet.com/8301-11128_3-20004543-54.html
and this data centre
http://news.cnet.com/8301-11128_3-10405955-54.html

it's out there!

Why do you use dollar and not gold to basis the BTC?

It is all in your head, value is like dust in the wind, sometimes it is invisible and other times it is a fearsome maelstrom bearing down on you.

Take the blue pill, reality is within your grasp.

Yeah, nervous about water in there too, was wondering if anybody had knowledge of how susceptible these things are to leaks in the system, etc.?

Noise would the big advantage for me with liquid cooling. Would be good to have quiet warm brick in the corner of the office, instead of shut away in the basement, fans howling. Back burner project for now ....

Well there is, or why do you think we are all here, because we like to play with make-believe tokens?

The security and anonymity afforded by the substantial computational power, and electricity, that goes into maintaining the network integrity provides precisely that value.

If another P2P, or other network, could put up the same hardware and energy for secure, anonymous transactions then their digital units may have similar value.

Yeah, I agree. Looks like the Tilera has only 1 ALU per processor, so 64 total or up to 100 on new chip ... not in the same league as the 5970.

Anybody in Auckland, Waikato area want to exchange NZD for BTC.

Can organise a meet up to trade cash, BTC, mining hardware and/or s.ware expertise. Or bank transfer NZ-wide.

I like the way casascius is thinking.

Would it be correct to paraphrase: Mining difficulty is underlying drive for increase in value of bitcoins, not the other way around.
(although there is a certain amount of feedback)

Would be interesting to see a plot correlating network difficulty and bitcoin value (as based on a basket of commodities and currencies).

Only when we get some big cabinets full of racks will the value really head up and stay up. The mining hardware is the concrete under the floor of the BTC.

On that note, has anybody had a go at porting a miner code onto the Tilera chipset?
http://www.tilera.com/products/processors

Linux SMP and other lower-level data-planes are already ported and apparently, they have very good integer performance   , i.e., for network security, QoS and DDoS, digital video.
I'm trying to get hold of an evaluation board but it seems they are held in tight supply unless you want to buy lots of 10,000  

It is conceivable that consortium of powerful banks and hedge funds who are not beholden to the current oligarchical monetary system, probably not mega-banks but mid-level up and coming like Saxobank, etc, start up something like bitcoin. They are just as sick of swallowing the costs of bailing out their bigger competiton and playing byu the shit rules coming down from on top.

P2P, using their own computational power, based in zones outside the FATF and KYC BS, and branding to bootstrap a fiat rival but keep it open source, etc with the same qualities as bitcoin but much better start-up public credibility ... wouldn't be the worst thing.