Ounce of gold from ceremic processors

It depends on which kind. I found some info that said there is about .19 to .20 grams of gold in a 486. According to my calculations, it would take about 141 to 149 chips to make an ounce of gold. I found this thread very informative on CPU Gold recovery:
http://forums.silverstackers.com/top...nd-values.html

Originally Posted by Gravitar

It depends on which kind. I found some info that said there is about .19 to .20 grams of gold in a 486. According to my calculations, it would take about 141 to 149 chips to make an ounce of gold. I found this thread very informative on CPU Gold recovery:
http://forums.silverstackers.com/top...nd-values.html

I understand you are trying to be helpful, that's awesome. Some of the chips on that list are close to yields, or might be dead on. I will tell you this however, the information on the Pentium Pro's is absolutely incorrect. I have literally processed thousands of CPUs, and hundreds upon hundreds of Pentium Pros. Matter of fact I am digesting 184 Pentium Pros as I type this. On average with very little give or take, Pentium Pros yield .33 grams of gold each.

The very best CPUs to run are the i86 pin-less. The yields are very high. The next best would be double gold cap pentiums. Lb per lb they yield more than anything less than the i86 pin-less CPUs.

Scott

I am talking about the really old i86 pin-less, not the newer CPUs like Sun Systems, etc. It's the older ceramic CPUs, made by intel, pin-less. Here are some pictures of what I am talking about:

Note the large I and the numbers 186. Computer CPUs went in series, 8086, 186, 286, 386, 486, 586/pentium 686/P2 etc. The 186 was one of the first series used in computers widely. The chips that have a higher yield are the I 186 or what people usually call i86.











Here is a picture of the top/bottom of an i86



Here are some CPUs/ICs that are NOT the i86, but look very close. The yields are not as good, but they are also close. As a refiner looking at a lot of chips to process, because of the price these fetch, you have to be careful so as not to buy the wrong type of chips, you could slightly pay over what the value is if these chips are slipped in.

This is an i86 series chip, but made in the 1990s. If you look at the bottom of the chip where it has the years, 78, 87, 90 those were the years it was redesigned and the architecture was updated. If you compare the gold plating, to the pictures above, you will see that in the 1990s, the gold plating technology was far superior to the CPUs above, there is no raised gold sitting on top of the chip, but rather metal leads that are barely plated at all in comparison.



Here is another Intel, not an i86 series, but the yields are very close:



Here is another pinless trying very hard to look like an i86 made by AMD:



Hope this helps,

Scott

Actually there are 31.1 grams to a troy ounce, precious metals are most often measured by troy ounce. So...

so it would be 31.1 / .33 = 94.242424 etc or between 95-95 CPUs. I always figured 100 CPUs per ounce so make sure I figured with a buffer when I was buying large quantities of them. But I think you get the point. It takes far more Pentium Pro's to make an ounce than is generally believed.

Gold plating on pins and/or CPUs is generally between 10-30 micro inches in thickness.

Lets just use this as an example, to explain how much it takes to make a full gram of gold with that type of thickness. I am just shooting ballpark here.

So lets say we have 100 square inches. That seems like a lot. Now multiply that by 30 micro inches, then subtract the correct amount for 22k because gold plating is 22k not 24k unless it's a very special application, the reason for this is because 24k gold tends to smear. Anyway, that 100 square micro inches of 22k gold is about .948 grams. Valued at today's spot prices at about $50-$52 dollars, somewhere in there.

You can use this online gold plating calculator to figure it out for yourselves:

Gold Plating Calculator

Once you realize how very little gold there actually is, it puts everything else into perspective. This is exactly the reason why I stopped toll refining. You cannot tell people that the gold in their material is actually far less than what they believe it is. No matter how many times you attempt to explain it, no matter how much effort you put into your argument, when it comes to gold people stop thinking, their brain shuts down and this dormant part of your brain takes the drivers seat. It's as if it's this phantom part of the mind that never shows itself until the eyes see gold, then everything else that is thought of in regards to gold after that point, makes no sense at all.

I had a prospector ask me to run some material for him, so I did it free of charge just for kicks to see if there was anything in his ore. There was a lot of something, iron, but no precious metals. I did this for free mind you. I did a complete fire assay at my own expense and didn't ask for anything in return. He cursed me out, told me I didn't know what I was doing, that nobody believes him, it was so strange, he turned into this totally different person. He knocked the little ball of iron I had recovered into his own car, totally off his rocker. But that's just how it is. People that see gold will see it no matter who says what to them. These people are often preyed upon, on ebay. They are told all kinds of numbers and wonderful things that just simply are not true. In the past I used to complain to ebay about them, or message the people directly and tell them to correct their auction, but it's a difficult thing for ebay to enforce or for anyone to actually say. You see, people generally do not know how much gold is in CPUs. But there is this document floating around that each has one gram, probably propagated by someone who was selling Pentium Pro's. There are many different places you find the same exact list. It's probably one of the Internets biggies lies. I wouldn't be surprised one day if someone doesn't write something about it to be honest. It's even referred to by popular and well respected periodicals, it's insane. So it makes it even more difficult to tell anyone that Pentium Pros don't have 1 gram each. I don't know why they don't just simply ask Intel.

Anyway, sorry about the rant. It's just one of those things that bother people who have or still do refine this type of material.

Scott

Originally Posted by Bear

It takes 84 Pentium Pros to get an ounce of gold? (.33=basically 1/3, so 3 per gram, 28 grams to an ounce, so 3x28 = 84)

I have to apologize for the way I answered your question. I say things real blunt and matter of fact, and when responding in a thread on a forum like this, I forget to emote I am being cut and dry, and instead I sound like a know-it-all and kind of snotty. I didn't mean for it to sound that way.

Unless you are dealing with precious metals and buying/selling on a regular basis, you probably wouldn't know that precious metals are measured by the troy ounce, and not avoirdupois ounce. There are 14 troy ounces to a lb, and 16 avoirdupois ounces. It makes it confusing when buying and selling gold bearing material. There are some people who are unscrupulous and will weigh your material based on whatever measurement allows them to steal from you. If you have ever talked with a gold buyer in a mall, they usually measure by penny weight for this exact same reason. Penny weight is not a normal measurement people would run into. It's not even the way most legit precious metal buyer/sellers deal with. It's just another way of leading you to believe you are getting a better deal that you are.

Anyway, I apologize Bear, for the way my answer sounded, that's not how I intended it.

Scott