The Sapphire 1GB 6950 is $250 shipped on newegg, plus there's currently a $20 MIR but assuming that doesn't work I should still be able to get 420MH/s out of the card with proper overclocking. At the current difficulty level thats ~.75BTC/day and I realize this will drop about once a week but I still feel that it will be profitable, and in any case my desktop could really use an upgrade from an old 4550.
Anyone think this is a bad idea?
You won't get anywhere near 420MH/s out of that card... More like 325-335... It's not a reference card so you can't unlock the shaders on it... Otherwise it's a good card.