Just bought a 6950

[risho]

so I found bit coin and now I am fascinated. It seems really interesting, but I have a few questions.

I run ubuntu linux and I'm going to be putting the 6950 in my main pc, so it isn't going to be a dedicated rig, but anyways if I'm running the gpu mining client will it bog down my computer while i'm using it? how many watts will this gpu be using? and what will happen if i try to run a gpu accelerated video in mplayer while I am mining? or if i try to run a 3D game while I am mining? is the gpu miner low priority so it'll only use free resources?

[AstroKev]

You can overclock it using aticonfig and easily gpu mine with m0mchil, diablominer, or others.  You will probably need to use the "-f" option on many of these with a high-ish value to prevent slowing down graphics for your own use.  For example, if you are running X and moving things around this will be slower but the -f option on many of these will enable you to tell the gpu miner to step aside and give more priority to your applications.  See http://forum.bitcoin.org/?topic=1721.0;all for some samples

You will need to install pyopencl and the ati catalyst drivers as well.