No the 580s are for gaming, folding, video work and daily use.
Nonetheless, I doubt mining is even profitable, for the electricity cost of leaving them on.
Hmm.
One 580 is giving me atm, 150MH/sec
Let's say 300w draw for card. That's 7.2 KWH/day or 216 KWH per month x $0.10 here or $21.60 a month.
If one 5970 generates roughly BTC 0.48 a day for ~720MH/sec, let's just divide by 5, so that'd be roughly BTC 0.096 a day x 30 days (keeping it simple here) = BTC 2.88 per month. 2.88 x (we'll say $5) = $14.40
...
DARN IT.
To be honest I'd sell the card and go AMD if their drivers
Wait for Kepler if I was in your position. I have a feeling they are going to rock this time for mining with the GTX780 having 2304 shaders !
Imagine what the GTX790 will do with 2304 SP * 2 = 4608 shader processors ! I think if their arch did not suck at integer performance then it will surely beat that 7990.
And you are 100% right, AMD drivers always will and always have sucked really hard. I hate AMD with a passion for that fact alone. Nvidia is not that much better and they still have shitty drivers ( but much better than AMD ), pity the GTX580 sucks compared to a 5870 but I think Kepler will change that
