What do I do next?

[M3t]

Thanks for being patient with me, boys. Really appreciate the friendly community, and I'm pretty damn excited to be here to be honest, much like everyone else I suppose.

 

I just got these a few hours ago:

http://i47.tinypic.com/9k5574.jpg

A few hours later, I installed them:

http://i46.tinypic.com/1at93.jpg

That's where I am at the current moment; the only thing I know next is to get Bitcoin-QT & Armory. What do I do now? Is there some way to "Create a wallet" yourself in Bitcoin-QT? After that, do I just download Diablo or cgminer, and will it have options to let me join BTC Guild or Slush, etc? Please fill in the gaps!!

[Isokivi]

Your right, get a wallet, encrypt it and keep it locked,  select a pool, select a miner, configure it, start mining, watch the miner.. pay attention to gpu temperatures, I personally would not exceed 74c on pristine new cards like yours. More than anything keep reading, all the information you need is here on these forums. Do the math for example with http://www.bitcoinx.com/profit/

Whenever difficulty changes, you should redo the math, I started mining with Gpus at a negative profit, it worked out for me, but in the beginning I was reckless and more enthusiastic than knoweledgeable. I fear you may have quite similiar beginnings.

[tbd]

For more information on Diablo see this thread: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=1721.0  You want the "newest binary."

Depending on which you select, you may need to set up an account with your address, or your address can be specified as a parameter to Diablo.

[Joe_Bauers]

Looks nice!!!   At current network rates, you should be able to get about 1 BTC per 10 days 24/7 or so in a pool. One thing to note is that you don't need to have them in SLI unless you're going to play games too. Since you only have two it might make more sense to separate them a bit more for better air flow. It looks like you might be able to get one on the bottom PCIe slot... but I can't tell from the pic.

Also, once ASIC's start coming online in force, you're gonna want to either start mining litecoins, or become a gamer 

[M3t]

Oh, that's the thing. The only reason I went out and got these is because I'm one of the guys who pre-ordered a few ASICs, but I have no idea how to mine bitcoins.

So I just went out and got these to learn how to mine before my pre-orders come =)

-------------------------

Anyways, how do I go generating a wallet all by myself? Does Bitcoin-QT make me a string of characters/letters, etc?

[M3t]

Bump!

[M3t]

Also, should I put these cards in crossfire or no?

[Isokivi]

Also, should I put these cards in crossfire or no?

Asfar as I know crossfire can only hurt your Mhs.

[Neuroticgrim]

Hey,

Don't crossfire the cards as it will lower your hash rate. The cards look great, if you don't have a third card I would suggest moving one to the last PCI-e slot to separate them further for cooling purposes. I would also do some cable management for looks and air flow .

Have you started mining with them as of yet? if so which pool did you join?

[M3t]

Should I take the crossfire bridge off of them, or will simply disabling crossfire work in software drivers?

[Neuroticgrim]

I am pretty sure disabling them will work, but it only takes seconds to pull the bridge off anyway to be sure.

[M3t]

I get a better hash rate with sli on o.o

[Neuroticgrim]

I believe you are confused ( or trolling)..  Nvidia cards can be put into an SLI configuration if in the same model group,    Radeon/ATI cards can be placed into a crossfire configuration. In both cases the advantages deal with graphic rendering for games.   It is argued all over these forums and the hardware comparison sites that its better to leave the cards out of crossfire as this will reduce the hashrate.

The only thing i can think of that would cause the rate to go down when you removed the bridge, is that you may have disabled software that was boosting or overclocking the cards.