Thanks. I'll have to check on those numbers. I'm also assuming that the numbers provided by the online calculators are assuming that your part of a pool? Is solo mining out of the question now a days? I'm also assuming a 650 watt psu is good enough to handle the 7970 as it's hammering away at those hashes. I'm also unsure about the cost of cooling and whether I'm at risk to overheat the thing.

I've already been to all three of those places, but I'm still not sure which is the better investment. The calculator tells me how much bitcoins I'm likely to make per day, but if I'm mining solo there's the chance that I'll never solve a valid block, isn't there? I'm more interested in which is the better investment choice for my specific situation. I can see the comparisons of hardware on the wiki, but I'm not sure how I would stack up to other miners.

Hello, I'm new to mining. As of right now I'm using one nvidia gtx 260, which is pretty good for gaming but only gives me a rate of about 45.4 Mhash/s.  Over the past few days I've only accumulated .02 bitcoins from slush pool. At this rate I don't think mining is even worth it. My motherboard only has one x16 PCIE slot and is as of now too much of a hassle to replace.  My current operating system is the GNU/Linux distribution arch linux in case that's important.

Anyway since investing in a new motherboard and gpu is too costly and will result in too much time in cable management I was considering either buying a 7970 or a bitforce single.  It seems that I can get a 7970 off of newegg for around $500, so the price difference is around $100.

I will likely order either within a month or so, and I'm not sure if I want to deal with the advertised 4-6 week waiting period for the single.  In about a month or so, how fast will I be able to mine bitcoins with either of these, and will I be able to successfully mine solo?  Which is the better investment?

--Thanks in advance.

Wait what? Really? I started mining yesterday in a virtual terminal. I prefer to use a virtual terminal without x loaded because I feel (but am unable to substantiate) that running my miner without x loaded will free up resources on my card to be better spent on calculations. Is it really true that you absolutely must have x loaded to mine with an ati card? Does that really make buying an ati worth it?

alright thanks for the information!

Hello slush pool! I dove in for a swim yesterday for the first time, and I'm curious as to how long it takes to validate blocks and why invalid blocks exist in the first place.

So do all solved blocks yield fifty bitcoins? I was under the impression that getting those bitcoins took a lot longer. Also what's the probability of finding an invalid block, and why do they appear? How long does it take for slush to confirm my earnings? Also I'd like to confirm that earning fractional values going solo is not possible...when you're alone it's all or nothing correct?

Hello world, and all the boys and girls ! My name is Andrew: future computer scientist and soon to be college student. My inherent love for free as in freedom software and the gnu/linux operating system eventually led to my discovery of this wonderful community. I was looking for a good way to benchmark my graphics card on gnu/linux due to the absence of games and I think that mining suits the purpose just fine. I'm not sure if I will ever make hard currency off of bitcoins, or even accumulate a lot of it, but it's at least a fun way to try.

I know that there is an introductory thread at the top of the forum, but I have a few specific questions and I highly doubt that that thread is checked often enough for my questions to be acknowledged.

I recently joined the slush pool and I have a few questions.

1) cgminer reports that my M/hash rate is 44.7 while my slush pool account reports that my average rate is only 25. What gives? Am I contributing more than I'm getting credit for?

2) My score is changing wildly every few seconds. Sometimes it's over five thousand, and sometimes it's around seven. I don't really understand why.

3)If I set the bitcoind daemon to generate coins will it tell me when/if I win a block?

4) How are "rounds" set up? slush pool reports my contribution to a round, as well as my "unconfirmed" contributions. I apparently have no "confirmed" contributions. Am I still going to be awarded the unconfirmed bticoins? It is included as part of my total award. Do rounds end when slush pool wins a block? how does that work, it's very confusing.

5) I know I shouldn't develop a sense of entitlement, but I sent for bitfaucet to send me coins. It's been 24 hours and I still haven't gotten anything. has the faucet dried up? Will I ever get those bitcoins?

Developing a new universal currency and personally playing a role in its creation? Count me in.