A couple questions from a newbie miner

[ender2012]

I am interested in trying to mine and I had a couple quick questions.  First, I was wondering if there is any software that people use to get an accurate idea of how much energy they are using to mine?  Second, I have not been able to find any reputable looking sites for trading litecoins, is there an mt.gox of Litecoins?  Finally, is it possible to use your video cards for different tasks concurrently?  For example, I have two 7970s and an Nvidia 9800GTX, could I mine with the two 7970s and play a game with the nVidia card?  Is this a bad idea?  Instead could I mine Litecoins with one 7970 and bitcoin with the other 7970?  Is this a bad idea
I have a nice 700 watt power supply should this be enough to power both these cards? 

Thanks for humoring a newbie!

[1715015024]

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[ender2012]

Is there anyway I can move this to the mining area?

[marketermac]

I don't have all the answers but I believe I have a few for you -

I don't know of any software for measuring energy usage, but you can get a meter that will measure it at the wall for just a few dollars. I personally purchased this:
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B007KX2YXQ/ref=oh_details_o03_s00_i00?ie=UTF8&psc=1

The only platform I've discovered so far for litecoins is btc-e:
https://btc-e.com/

I cannot speak to their reputation personally as I've never used them, but they do have a large thread here with lots of comments if you want to do some research:
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=40889.0


I have not had any problems splitting up video cards as you suggested (disabled Xfire in my base with 7970s) and mining from the GPUs that weren't connected to my monitor while using the remaining GPU to do whatever (I don't game on it, but I do watch movies and such). I personally use 50btc:
https://50btc.com

because it's ridiculously easy to get started with their GUI miner, and it has a throttle so you can use all of your GPUs and just throttle it down so your computer isn't crashing when you watch a video or do anything else, plus the pool fee's seem reasonable to me. You can instantly withdraw your BTC anytime you choose to as long as you've accumulated at least .01.


I've never mined any litecoins so I can't really help you out there either.

I have measured my 7970 x2 setup pulling ~660w at the wall with a 1050mhz overclock on each card (setup with i5 ivybridge + watercooling loop that I'm sure takes lots of extra watts). Most suggest to keep a PSU at about 20% below it's max for power efficiency and longevity, but it totally depends on the quality of your PSU.


Hope that helped.