That's not the same thing. Amazon and newegg do not recognize bitcoin as a valid currency, and neither does any other vendor that I've seen. Until and unless they do, this experiment can't be successful in the long term.
Amazon also doesn't recognize a random string of numbers as a valid currency, but given a certain level of value through american express I can use it to buy things from amazon.com. Would you say that amazon doesn't accept credit cards?
It's the exact same thing as using bitcoins. Amazon doesn't trust your string of numbers, nor does it trust your cryptocurrency. But given a 3rd party, either american express or spendbitcoins.com, you can use those things to make purchases all the same.
but if their goal is to truly create a new world currency then it's bound to be a failure unless widespread producers of goods and services begin accepting it directly, and it's way too volatile for them to risk doing that.
Nothing we didn't already know from the mining hardware comparision wiki. But it may attract more people to bitcoins -- never a bad thing. Oh, and hardware manufacturers are aware of [H] and the effect it has on the masses. This may turn out interesting after all.
Why do I have to join a pool? Does that mean someone ELSE gets my bitcoins or do I still generate them for ME?
And I'm guessing people keep saying "don't bother" to keep their own difficulties from going up any more?
There's no reason for someone with existing high end ATI hardware NOT bitcoin mine when it's otherwise unused. Absolutely none.
It's nothing at all like using a credit card. It's more like using an online foreign currency exchange to spend your Euros or Yuan at an American vendor. Credit cards are completely unrelated because both sides of the transaction are denominated in $US.
The problem though is that Euros or Yuan have value because of the strength of the economies that use them and the strength of the governments that control them. Bitcoins have value only because people are gambling that in the future they can be exchanged for more dollars. The instant that it becomes more costly in electricity/hardware to generate them, or a different investment opportunity comes along with a better return, then the bitcoin experiment is over. It's an elegant idea and it's been interesting to watch so far but if their goal is to truly create a new world currency then it's bound to be a failure unless widespread producers of goods and services begin accepting it directly, and it's way too volatile for them to risk doing that.
GPU bitcoin efficiency article at HardOCP: http://hardocp.com/article/2011/07/13/bitcoin_mining_gpu_performance_comparison
Would a Corsair 850W Power supply power 2x5830s and 1x5850? It's the modular version, I forget the exact model right now. The rest of the system is a i7-920 stock 12GB RAM and an Intel SSD.
i'm really new to "bitcoins". where and how can i use them?
Some people don't like the heat, noise, and higher power bills. If you get sent to a higher tier of electric rates, you could end up paying through the nose for the extra electricity. Hawaiians and those who pay much higher electric rates are also hit extra hard by electric costs. Higher heat, if dealt with via air conditioning, translates to higher electric costs as well.
Is it really that bad though? I think someone calculated that it cost about $2.50 in electricity to produce 1 bitcoin at $0.15/watt/hr, even if Hawaii electricity costs 5 times that it would still be a net profit. Do you have an exact figure, is it really more than $.75/Watt/hr? And sure, the heat adds a little more to the power cost by making your AC work harder, but even at $14 per BTC it would have to make your AC work a LOT harder to cancel out your potential profit. Don't count it twice though, that is cheating.
It costs much more than $2.50 now to find 1 bitcoin. I have just over 1Ghash, which is somewhere between 750-900 watts. Even if we use the 750 figure, which is too low, my costs per day at $0.15/watt/hr would be nearly $3, and I only generate about .65 BTC/day. That puts it over $5 to find 1 bitcoin. Still profitable, just less profitable.
Take for example my power bill for the month of June vs month of May. I mined 0 days in May, every day in June. Power bill was $80 higher, probably $70+ of that attributable to mining.