Thanks for the replies.
So the bitcoin client does what exactly? Send and receive bitcoins only?
And store them. It is a wallet.
Newer VM setups allow you to virtualize hardware, some graphics cards can now be used by a VM host machine.
I was thinking it would be more efficient to virtualize then throwing hardware at the problem.
VM simply split of existing computing power. They don't magically make more computing power out of nothing. If your host hardware has "X" computing power you can't get >X out of the VM combined. Instead of X you could have x/4 + x/4 + x/4 + x/4 but it is still = X (technically <x because of the VM overhead). What do you think VM do?
The analogy would be like saying.
"why do people build supercomputers? They could just use a VM? An atom netbook with VM would be more efficient than a supercomputer."
So why do people build supercomputers? Is is the same reason why people build massive hashing farms.
Again, so I am clear on this. Bitcoins can be bought with money or mined with a PC?
Yes. Or traded for goods & services.