Given the current rate of ASICs coming up on the network, GPU mining of BitCoins has become retardedly hard. I barely get shit done with my 7970, and a friend of mine running CF'd 7970's is also saying it's starting to become too slow.
The solution is to mine LiteCoins. LTCs run on a different system which requires a complete redesign of the ASIC chip, which means current ASICs can't mine LTC. Also their implementation of a E-Coin system is newer, better and designed with an accent on fairness for the miners.
However LTC are still fairly cheap being new and all. Last I checked it was around 4-5-6 $ per LTC. However that's the same price BTCs had on the 1st of January 2013, so yes.
The LTC systems has also been designed with ASICs in mind. As in, to not have ASICs profit so much. I'm not exactly sure on the technical details of this, but I imagine it has something to do with the inherent nature of the chip of ASICs being specially designed and all.
As a final point, I wanted to say that whilst currently mining LTC is not very profitable, I'm personally betting that it will eventually override BTC as the main E-Coin currency system. Also, LTC mining is still done in pools, since that is the most profitable and fair way.
Extra details:
Litecoin website (contains download for the wallet software):
http://litecoin.org/The pool that I'm currently using, which seems to also be one of the biggest, fairest, lowest fee and nice to manage:
https://www.wemineltc.com/