Well, have to do some thinking, and pay attention to old hardware that runs those kind of cards. Have no desktop hardware at all these days, so have to buy everything from scratch, included the wireless card (got free internet also :p)

The general wisdom then, is that most hardware is of less significance except the graphic cards and the power supply, right? could I go with some old core2duo or the Athlon x2?

Thanks for the input.

Hi,

after reading a bit about bitcoin and mining, I've decided to give it a go. The idea of decentralized money should rock anyone's boat when there's been inflation behind probably most great wars.

At the moment I'm giving my gaming laptop (ASUS G53SW w/ gtx460) a go but it's really slow - it works though, and it's fun to watch. But I want more.

I have some money to spare to use on mining hardware, and wonder what to go for, a pc or one of these ASIC devices. So I got some questions.

The ASIC devices - are these the ones to go for?

The 5GH/s device is at 274$ - how fast are these generating coins?

There is a 25GH/s device as well as a 50GH/s giving a little bit more GH/s per dollar - how much time is needed to have it repay itself? I can only invest in those one if I know I get the money back in not too long.

I have free electricity in my apartment and will most likely have it for close to a year - but I'm not loaded with money, so the two expensive devices need to promise something in return for buying them.

Or should I try get some used PC hardware from the gaming ppl?

What would be the wisest thing to do with a 300-500$ loseable budget?

My Wallet has stuck also. It had downloaded and synced, but I clicked a option on the network window to connect through the SOCKS proxy and I can't "unhook" the option and now it is stuck like that - can't figure it out. Any tip?

Noob questions, but thanks.