You dont even need that. PCI-E 1x is enough, all you need is a cable to convert from the 1x slot on the motherboard to the physical 16x connector of the card. It will only work at 1x speeds obviously, but PCI-E lane width is not an issue for bitcoin mining.

okay more OT since the original topic is boring anyway:
That report is HIGHLY dubious. To point out just one thing, AFAIK the opera team did not use GPS satellites for timing as claimed by the author; they used atomic clocks on the ground, and these atomic clocks where synchronized by moving a third atomic clock from one location to the other and back. The question of relativistic effects has been raised on the first press conference, and the researchers were adamant ALL effects had been taken in to account. Considering this was a 3 year experiment with highly unusual results, to assume the entire team forgot something as basic as.. relativity, is just not likely. BTW, it also appears (if the internet is to believed) the author is a crackpot. I cant vouch for that, but writing the report alone and working for a "department of artificial intelligence", I wouldnt take this as fact until its confirmed.

5970 probably, particularly if you use 3 of them on one board.

For a poker game, I will settle for nothing less than opensource. Besides, Im on linux.
All I can say, give http://sealswithclubs.org a try

This.
Services like bitpay may help mitigate the volatility to a large extent, but its definitely not helpful to see BTC value fluctuate more then thermometer in the Siberian spring. It does huge damage to its image, it prevents non dynamic setting  of prices and basically makes a bitcoin economy almost impossible. The only way to use it is buy the bitcoins before your purchase, with the merchant selling them for dollars instantly with bitcoins never remaining in the economy. Thats not entirely useless, but really not what it could be.

Anyway, I dont hate speculators, I do hate stupid speculation, and honestly, this is what we are seeing. There is nothing going on in bitcoin land that warrants the swings we have seen. No real increase in commerce, no real threats or opportunities. Whatever you thought in may bitcoin might achieve over time, all that is still valid today. Why price would go up and down by an order of magnitude makes no sense. This daily buying and selling makes no sense, it is a lottery. Its literally a zero sum game. If you want to speculate, at least take the long view.

Ahm. No.

ah, but its still entirely possible you are withholding blocks, and our real luck is 99.9925%
Then again, with this kind of luck one wouldnt even care

Okay I did the math. The last 15 blocks with less than 10M shares, thats a chance of 0.25% !
If anyone wants to check, I used this in excel:
=BINOMDIST(15,9940017,1/1468195, FALSE)

where the green number is the sum of all shares for the last 15 blocks, and the red number is the difficulty.

Are we now not officially the most lucky pool like, ever ?
Since the new difficulty, so for over 14 blocks. we have an average of 653K shares per block rather than the 1.468M you'd expect.
My statistics is very rusty, someone else feel free to calculate the odds, but that seems VERY lucky! If you look at the last 25 blocks, its even more insane.

edit: lol, and another one. 4th block this day ! So make that 621,251 over 15 blocks :p

I dont think, unless I misread you. I wasnt being ironic. I know the guys that build the sensor that most of next years hollywood movies will be filmed with. They could literally do it in their garage,...  if you fund the masksets.


Nah, I dont think. Ive been in to bitcoin for like 2 months now, and just running my pc and a rat rig in the basement. What do I know? Deathandtaxes has my vote too though.

I somewhat disagree on this. I know what it takes to make world class CMOS image sensors with onchip processing that have ended up anywhere from satellites to professional high speed cinema camera's, and it basically is just 2 or 3 experienced and talented guys with the right tools (which isnt more than a workstation with the right software).

Oh, and money. Lots of money. If this is a full custom design, a mask set for a leading edge process is no small potatoes  and basically out of reach without some serious VC funding, but assuming this is based on a off the shelve FPGA chip, at least the "couple of engineers in a garage" part is more than plausible. If they have boatloads of money, even a full custom chip would be within reach, but I doubt anyone would be able to raise sufficient capital for a bitcoin chip.

.exe's ? wow, hadnt even read that. Thats the end of BTContilt for me.

Just for reference, this is from our local variant of Craig's list:
http://www.2dehands.be/computer-game-consoles/computer-onderdelen/3d-kaarten/ati-5970-msi-104674757.html?qq=5970

295 euro asking price and he allows bidding from 220 euro. Still has 18 months warranty too.

I dont think second hand cards cost anything like that in Switzerland. I think he meant be the odd shop still selling them new as rarity for those that really need them or online shops that havent updated their site in a few years . For roughly half that price you can buy used 6990s in Belgium, I kinda doubt Switzerland would be very different.  If anything, prices here seem lower than in the US, judging by going rates on this forum. I buy my stuff substantially cheaper. Interested in importing ?

Volatility =! decreasing prices. Perhaps you think a 100x increase in price in mere months was somehow stable?
Bitcoin exchange rates have been extremely volatile since day 1. And yes, thats to be expected from something new and unknown, but as long as it remains this volatile, its going to have a damn hard time gaining any sort of traction aside from gamblers and allowing bitcoin to achieve an exchange rate that is more reflective of its performance as a currency rather than purely the combined panic/hype sentiments and self fulfilling prophecies of gamblers.

Second hand cards FTW!  Seriously, with some luck you can find astonishing good deals. 120 euro for a 5870 which is the hashing equivalent of a 6970 costing almost 3x as much here. OKay, so I wont have much, if any warranty, but I dont except them all to die 3x in 2 years on average.
edit: cool. this forum knows IRC codes

Actually, Im not so sure. For the past decade I have been waiting for that "killer app" to make use of our computing resources, but it isnt happening. 10 years ago we heard all those promises of voice recognition, AI and what not. Ill see if I can find a funny slide I saw from intel making 10 year predictions, I found it laughable at the time, I think its hilarious now. In reality those problems have proven to be software, not hardware problems, and we havent progressed much since 2000. Basically our PCs are still doing the exact same things they were doing 10 years ago, and a need for faster processing for the most part just isnt there. For the bulk of daily tasks, our current hardware, or even old hardware, is more than fast enough, given efficient software.

Its therefore no surprise to see the current trends are away from highend PCs, towards slower but more mobile, more easy to use and usually, more affordable devices. First the netbook rage, now smartphones, tablets, and upcoming smartbooks. For those tasks these machines are too slow to handle, there is always the cloud. Even gaming is moving to the cloud, look up OnLive or Otoy.

Im willing to bet in 10 years, the majority of us will use computing devices that are barely faster than our current desktops. They might even be slower. They will no doubt be more useful, have better software and connectivity, they will be more portable and tap in to performance remotely when needed. But significantly better raw performance? I doubt it.

Anyway, thats not to say I declare Moore's Law dead yet. It will be used however primarily to obtain better energy efficiency. The same chips that power your iphone  or android phone will end up in huge numbers in datacenters, and those datacenters will do ever more of our number crunching. PCs will become like Unix workstations: rare (and expensive) dinosaurs.

Again you seem utterly unable to see the difference between investing/gambling and the usefulness of a currency as a facilitator for conducting trade. Yes, I think gold is a bad way to conduct trade, no one uses gold to pay for their bread.


Why on earth would he risk his profitable business on the moodswings of a bunch of daytraders? Clearly you have never done any actual business.

It could be if you have to pay for electricity, which I dont (up to a limit). My only concern is MH/Euro, and 5850s and 5870s are tough to beat. Even if you include electricity cost, the difference with a 5970 would be minor if you dont max out your rigs (ie, 3 or 4 cards per system). 5970s I imagine would shine with energy efficiency if you can plug 3 or possibly 4 of them in a single rig, but they are also easily 50-100% more expensive per MH in purchase. That takes a while to earn back.

Spoken like a true gambler. A merchant has to pay for his stuff in $/EURO/Yen whatever. Gambling on the rise of "foreign" currencies is not what a merchant does, its what a speculator does. A merchant will want to protect himself from currency swings through hedging, even for swings as minor as what have between dollar and euro's etc. The volatility of bitcoin makes that a complete joke.