I want to preface this with the fact I know how to overclock cards I've been doing it with my 5830's for a month and a half.

So I recently picked up the 5850 from ncixus and they arrived yesterday. One thing I noticed is if I drop the memory to around 300 the card start acting up and becomes unstable. I've seen multiple time people who have 5850's recommend this speed?

Another thing thats weird is if I go to 970 core clock or above the system freezes the moment I hit apply. The reason I ask is because when my 5830's get overclocked too high the drivers just crash but it doesn't freeze the entire system. Do the 5850's just act different when overclocked?

I assume all this means is that I can't get stable overclocks over 970 but the cards are acting strange compared to my experience with 5830's.

Hey all I'm thinking about writing a program and it would require as many reputable websites that sell 5xxx and 6xxx cards as possible. My current list includes
newegg
tigerdirect
ncixus
amazon
superbiiz

Are there any other good sites out there?

I have no knowledge about this what so ever but in theory couldn't some helpful person on this forum buy up cards in bulk from sapphire directly and sell them to us? If they charged 10% more then what they paid per each card would it be cheaper then newegg prices? If that is true they would make profits and we could purchase cheap cards no?

Feel free to explain why I am wrong or why this this isn't feasible.

Ok so I know the max amount of gpu's in windows is 8 that's not what I'm asking. I have seen multiple posts on this forum where there are rumors and people stating they have over 8 gpu's in one system running linux. Can any one actually prove this?

Alright so I noticed that the AMD Sempron 130 Sargas 2.6GHz(http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16819103939) doesn't come with a heat sink. I really want to stop as much noise as possible if I were to get this heat sink http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16835103087 would I be able to keep the cpu cool with out the fan?

I'm bored so I figured I would start this thread for a fun way for people to be creative and also enlighten people of possible unknown set ups.

Basically you make a miner that is as efficient as you can in megahash per dollar. You have to link to the item it can be sold out however as long as the price is displayed.

I'll start off with my own crazy build to show you can be super creative.

792-8x6770(http://www.tigerdirect.com/applications/SearchTools/item-details.asp?EdpNo=602046&CatId=7005)
290-mobo(http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813130595R)
75-cpu(http://www.tigerdirect.com/applications/SearchTools/item-details.asp?EdpNo=567308&CatId=7226)
10-ram(http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820134657)
80-psu(http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817159101)
6-flash drive(http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820241103)
99-8*extender(https://cablesaurus.com/index.php?main_page=product_info&cPath=1&products_id=9)

and two of these:

http://i940.photobucket.com/albums/ad245/airdatasolutions/miner03.jpg

Finally got my 4th 5830 working on this miner !  Got a great rack/shelf unit for $4.99 at target.  It was in the kitchen utilities section   Cards sit nicely on the rack with the pcie connector going through.

Total cost:1362
expected megahash:1920

Megahash per dollar:1.41

This probably isn't the most efficient you could go but its a hell of a lot better then most ratio's and I was just trying to be creative with something people don't really consider,

I'm not an expert at calculating watt requirements is it at all possible to fit 5x5830's and a 5770 in one server with a 1200 watt power supply? What about if they are overclocked? Will doing this destroy the life of any of the parts?

Thanks in advanced

I've taken my data from here http://blockexplorer.com/q/nethash/2016 and I recorded the ammount of days between difficulty changes starting May 26 to now.

Thu, 26 May 2011 18:41:56 GMT
11 days till increase
Mon, 06 Jun 2011 12:25:05 GMT
9 days till increase
Wed, 15 Jun 2011 13:49:34 GMT
9 days till increase
Fri, 24 Jun 2011 11:45:23 GMT
12 days till increase
Wed, 06 Jul 2011 20:35:46 GMT
13 days till increase
Tues, 19 Jul 2011

As you can see from that information the difficulty changed the fastest in mid June and now is slowly moving towards the 14 day goal. Unless I'm mistaken the difficulty for the most part is stabilizing and by august we will have extremely low increases. This of course will only holds true as long as the price doesn't sky rocket.

I'd like to hear what others think about this.

I won't lie I'm not sure if this is any more secure but what if you stored a completely separate wallet on a virtual machine and transfered from your normal wallet to the virtual machine wallet.
If an exe that is meant to steal wallet's infects your computer could it just search and find the wallet in the vm or would it specifically need to know your running a vm to be able to find it?

I'm just curious because that would make things simpler I think because you don't have to worry about an encrypted drive breaking and losing all the data forever.

So feel free to rip away and tell me why this wont work.

I'm considering writing a program and I need to know the average speed you can expect to get overclocked and normal for each ati card 5xxx series and up. Is there a list with this information? If not what is the best way to find this information?

edit: my list

The format is:
Card number
expected non overclocked speed
expected average overclock speed
highest speed possible

#5770
156.8
220
241

#5830
256
311
345

#5850
280
370
429.7

#5870
313
440
490

#5970
750
825
863

#6870
232
300
332

#6950
272
380
454

#6970
370
420
?

#6990
670
820
850

If you could please give me any missing or inaccurate information I would appreciate it.

Ok so the fan in question is this:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=35-213-001&SortField=0&SummaryType=0&Pagesize=10&PurchaseMark=&SelectedRating=-1&VideoOnlyMark=False&VendorMark=&IsFeedbackTab=true&Keywords=%28keywords%29&Page=2#scrollFullInfo

I recognize that it is loud but I'm curious if any one has one similar to it or the same one and if so how much of a temperature drop did it do?

thanks.

Ive been looking at how much mega hash certain cards can produce and I noticed that if the price were to be cut for retail versions they would be worth investing in. My question is how often do ati cards drop in price and when can we possibly expect to see a change in price?

I purchased 2 5830's on new egg around 10 mins ago. Some proof:

http://www.reddit.com/r/Bitcoin/comments/ibq3k/shhhhh_5830s_back_in_stock_at_newegg/
https://i.imgur.com/9QD0r.jpg

Some one has to be mass buying these for resale on ebay. D: