Why does it now say Intersango on the britcoin site? i thought only the EU site was called that?

And possibly stupid question... but if i deposit BTC into my britcoin account, how does it know the BTC was deposited from me? Because the account doesn't know my bitcoin address..

Thanks for the congrats

@ Matt, cheers for that info I used the flag you're using (-v -w 128) that bumped me up to 765MH/s. I'm at 900MHz core overclock without the voltage mod and think i'll leave it at that for now.

I bought my cards for gaming so anything i make back is a bonus! They're really the cheaper 6950 cards too, but i've flashed there BIOS' with a 6970 BIOS, which literally turns these cards into a pair of 6970's as they use the exact same GPU. I think they're definitely the best cards to go for with mining (or gaming), as you save money going the flashing route and get the same speed as a real 6970 which is the fastest GPU for mining.

@ coinage and bitcoin.monger, am i missing something here?? Because you can easily disable CrossFire on Windows and have always been able to. But whether it's enabled or not is not making any difference, and i can still assign a miner to each GPU even with crossfire enabled. It looks as if i'm doing atleast as well as Linux users with the same GPU's as me.
Plus on Windows theres loads of software and custom drivers to tweak my cards which isn't available on Linux, maybe theres some Linux alternatives, but not as many... i also game and work on Windows, which i've tried to do on Linux before but most isn't possible for me or simply doesn't work as well when it is possible (AMD and Nvidia Linux drivers are buggy, perform worse, lack features...).

Definitely doing atleast 720.

With GUI Miner it's saying 365 MH/s for each of my two AMD 6970 graphics cards (both are slightly overclocked. It's around 340 at default speed, which is still a bit higher than what the chart lists for a 6970).
And on the pool site that i'm using it's saying my average is 731 total. Oh and i've made 1 bitcoin in just over 24 hours, so to reach a block my 60 day estimate seems about right

I got my estimate from this chart which is updated daily. It says one block is currently worth $646 today, and according to that chart it takes a high-end AMD Radeon 6990 card 82 days to make $718.60 (the cost of that graphics card). And a 6990 can do 670MH/s, but i can do more than that (over 720MH/s). Sooo very very roughly i was thinking it would take me around 60 days to hit my first block. Although it will likely be a little more if i take into account the rising difficulty of mining.

... But i've been using a pool anyway!

Yeah sorry i didn't read the documentation. Although i wasn't even aware there was any documentation at the time

I've got everything up and running now. And i'm doing over 720 MH/s using both of my GPU's. By my very quick and rough estimate it should take me around 60 days before i hit my first block if i do it solo? Or am i totally wrong? Because Anduril said it would take just under 2 years.... unless he's not aware how powerful a pair of AMD 6970's cards are (each does around 365MH/s).

ahitman: I have Crossfire, and i've just assigned a separate miner to each GPU using GUI Miner.

Thanks everyone

Sorry but a few more questions.... @Anduril: You say "it may take you just under 2 years to produce a new bloc (50 coins)" ... whats a "new bloc"?


So to start mining i was reading this guide and it says i need to install bitcoin from bitcoin.org.

And being as i have AMD graphics cards, i need the AMD Stream SDK.

Then i need to get GUI miner? (dont want command line rubbish).

So i've done all that.... and now i'm waiting for Bitcoin to download the block chain. Then i can start mining with GUI miner. Is all this correct?

With all the news lately about bitcoins and the MTGox hack (SQL injection? SERIOUSLY? a 12yo kid could do that!) it's got me interested in bitcoins.
So for all the people worrying that the bad press will put people off, well, i doubt it will. It might just get more people aware of bitcoins like myself.

So lots of possibly stupid questions:

1. How can i actually make money with bitcoins? I know theres some places where you can buy stuff with bitcoins, but there dont seem to be that many... is there any way i can sell bitcoins for standard currency ($ or £)? and if i can, where would i do this?

2. Do any of the miners work with Windows or are they all Linux? If theres any Windows miners, are they free and where can i get them?

3. Does CrossFire work? I have two 6970's, will they both be used by miners?

4. What exactly do i need to start mining?

5. Is there anywhere i can buy consumer goods with bitcoins? Do any of the large online stores accept them? Because all the places i've seen so far are not exactly great.