"the creators are just waiting to for the price to get high so they can grant themselves a million bitcoins and play you all for chumps"

A unified body makes an easy target for someone wanting to throw a wrench in the bitcoin machine, but thousands of private users on their own computers are more or less impossible to stop entirely, be it via legal or technological attacks or what have you.

I'm having this problem too (it wasn't happening with the 4870 I just switched out) and I'm wondering if this is unique to poclbm and certain miners or if it plagues all miners. What is the last known 'stable' driver set in regards to this issue?

I bought 8 BTC from him, transaction isn't fully confirmed yet but he delivered on his end promptly. Good seller.

Looking to buy $39 worth of BTC at current market rates. PM me if interested.

6950 x2 is better. IIRC, the 6990 is somewhat less powerful than 6950 x2, and I think the noise and heat would be worse from the 6990. The HIS 6950 you listed is a "turbo" edition slightly different than the standard ref card in the sense that it is clocked at 840 mhz instead of 800, though I don't know if that would change its unlocking potential. I'm trying to answer that question myself too so if anyone can confirm that it is unlockable, I would greatly appreciated it. The XFXs are 1GB and therefore can't unlock.

I'm talking about 6870s not 6970s

I'm looking to order graphics cards for my new build soon which I intend to use for both mining (on free electricity) and gaming. I'm wondering in regards to mining alone, how the two compete in terms of mhash/s I will get in real world conditions, and if the $100 increase on the 6950s (unlocked most likely) is worth whatever increase they give in performance.
I've seen the hardware comparison wiki, but some additional info on the matter would be greatly appreciated.

I'm very new to this entire concept, but for what specific reason has the gold rush "peaked" in your opinion? Aside from the fluctuations of the worth of bitcoins themselves, what variable determines the longevity of mining's profitability? Is the end of this "gold rush" simply a result of new miners driving up the difficulty?