SOLD OUT EVERYWHERE!!

[Maxxx]

6990s were sold out before bitcoin became a craze. They were a limited production line top end card. They're also a terrible $/hash buy for mining.

Exactly. These are gaming cards and probably a very, very small minority has been purchased for distributed computing.

Not to mention they cost $700 to $800 for about 600-700mhash/s, you can get two radeon 5870's for $300-$400 bucks at the cheapest & achieve the same or better.

Wha?  I get 850 mhash/sec on stock voltage on my 6990.  It's overclocked to 990 on both GPUs.  I could probably hit 1050 easy.  

And the point of the 6990 should be to have an awesome gaming rig AND hash.  But I don't think that's the case for a whole of people.

This.

I get 810 Mhash/s oc'd to 940 per card. I game as well.

[1713909519]

1713909519

[stick_theman]

I get 810 Mhash/s oc'd to 940 per card. I game as well.

What's your config in terms of overclock gpu/mem?  The range I get is around 630-700 Mhash based on 900/1260 clock rate.

[gat3way]

No worries, market will be flooded soon with cheap second-hand GPUs used for mining.

[MaGNeT]

Should I buy AMD stocks too?

[trueimage]

No worries, market will be flooded soon with cheap second-hand GPUs used for mining.

why because you think the bitcoin mining will become unprofitable?

[buckeye]

Damnit i have been looking for about 2-3 days for the Radeon HD 6990... its sold out everywhere, or backordered! demand is crazy!!

Well, more and more people are getting into mining. Those who are already into it want to increase the number of rigs they already own.

Where does it all stop?

[LegitBit]

Damnit i have been looking for about 2-3 days for the Radeon HD 6990... its sold out everywhere, or backordered! demand is crazy!!

The 6990 was never intended to be a very popular card. They didn't make many..

[Jarredm]

So is the supply shortage being caused by higher demand than expected or is it the Japan Tsunami causing a delay in production.  I had heard at one time that 40% of silicon components would be negatively impacted by the tsunami.  We just purchased 15 camcorders and had to go with a more expensive model because the cheaper ones were sold out and the supply chain is behind because of Japan.

[wangboy]

Hmmm Am I the only one that thinks this lack of cards is a good thing

I mean if anything if kind of puts a stop block on this hardware arms race that I'd imagine sees most miners profits go back into buying more hardware just to keep up with the rising difficulty.

[bcpokey]

So is the supply shortage being caused by higher demand than expected or is it the Japan Tsunami causing a delay in production.  I had heard at one time that 40% of silicon components would be negatively impacted by the tsunami.  We just purchased 15 camcorders and had to go with a more expensive model because the cheaper ones were sold out and the supply chain is behind because of Japan.

Supply shortage of what?

5xxx series gpus are last generation and are discontinued
6xxx series gpus are plentiful and in abundance (current gen tech)
6990s are a top end dual-gpu card and as always targetted only at the highest echelon of users, so created in limited amount intentionally.

Japan has nothing to do with any of this.

[Jarredm]

Hmmm Am I the only one that thinks this lack of cards is a good thing

I mean if anything if kind of puts a stop block on this hardware arms race that I'd imagine sees most miners profits go back into buying more hardware just to keep up with the rising difficulty.

You do have a point there.  But watching the graphs over the last two weeks it doesn't seem to have stemmed the tide much.  On the other hand, I only want the shortage to affect others, much to my own benefit!  Muah ha ha!  I've only got around 400 MH/s and would really like a bump up from a 5850 or similar.  Alas I cannot find it in stock.  I am deciding on whether I should chance it on ebay.  They have various cards some used some not.  I haven't decided yet.  If the shortage of new stock is going to be continuing then it would be worth my time to pick up a couple of used 48xx cards since I can get motherboards with additional slots without much issue.

[Jarredm]

So is the supply shortage being caused by higher demand than expected or is it the Japan Tsunami causing a delay in production.  I had heard at one time that 40% of silicon components would be negatively impacted by the tsunami.  We just purchased 15 camcorders and had to go with a more expensive model because the cheaper ones were sold out and the supply chain is behind because of Japan.

Supply shortage of what?

5xxx series gpus are last generation and are discontinued
6xxx series gpus are plentiful and in abundance (current gen tech)
6990s are a top end dual-gpu card and as always targetted only at the highest echelon of users, so created in limited amount intentionally.

Japan has nothing to do with any of this.

Good point.  I'll check into the 6xxx series again.  I guess I'll take what I can get.  For me anyway I was hoping to find the 5xxx last gen technology somewhere at a discount since others would be clamoring for the newer 6xxx.  The common wisdom is that the 6xxx don't hash as well as the 5xxx which if true then would explain why the remaining stock was bought out.

[wangboy]

I've not even built anything yet so I'm losing out too but I'm just a hobbyist and if I find my mate or someone selling a 5890 or upgrading I'll say "hey I'll take that off you"

To a student like me who wants to make a little extra spending money and make proper use of the free electricity in my apartment it's great.
Personally I don't buy the idea of people building these big farms of cards and if anything think it's greedy/unsustainable and mirrors all that is wrong in how the current capitalist world operates but that's off point and just my view.

If we all agreed to a bit of stagnation and didn't invest more we'd all be happier...But when is that ever going to happen

[marcus_of_augustus]

according to this, the max power of pci-e x16 slot is 75w and 6-pin plugs 75w each, so the max theoretical draw is 225w?

I've never used a card having an 8-pin power connector (gtx 460 and 6950 both have 2x 6-pin)

They didn't test the 5830 but the 5850 was about 151w under "full" load, although FuturMark doesn't peg the cards at 99% like mining does.

http://www.geeks3d.com/20100226/the-real-power-consumption-of-73-graphics-cards/

Either way if you budget 225w per card and get an 80+ Gold PSU you should be fine

^^ that's wrong. Here is a better resource

http://www.geeks3d.com/20090618/graphics-cards-thermal-design-power-tdp-database/

or this

http://www.geeks3d.com/forums/index.php/topic,1946.0.html

5830 @ "peak 3d" = 160 w

You can use PCIe riser ribbons with power cores broken to bypass power going thru mobo ... "more power to the GPUs" 
https://forum.bitcoin.org/index.php?topic=6128.0

keeps those the mobo power rails running coooo .... ool


Its a goldrush, you can tell your grandchildren you were there. Have fun guys.