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

If that list was on paper you could use it to wipe your butt when you finish using the bathroom. Do not go by those yield values on that list.

Originally Posted by BarrenRealms007

If that list was on paper you could use it to wipe your butt when you fiish using the bathroom. Do not go by those yield values on that list.

Ok, I have no experience in the gold recovery biz so I had no idea if the list was accurate, I only sell the boards. My math may have also been off. Now, because you actually buy CPU's and refine them I'm assuming, why don't you toss in your number.

so thats $400 worth of cpus to produce $1700 worth of gold, maybe i am in the wrong line of work

Originally Posted by jghilino

so thats $400 worth of cpus to produce $1700 worth of gold, maybe i am in the wrong line of work

At that payout, I think we all are.

It depends on many factors. There is the amount of gold they contain, then there is the amount you can recover and refine. Recovering and refining depends on the skill and knowledge of the refiner. For example, if the Kovar heat spreader is not removed prior to the chips destruction, you are introducing all kinds of base metals into your solution, then you are attempting to recover and refine from a dirty solution. There are many variables and ways of processing the CPUs.

The other thing is that different 486s have different yields. For example:

Per individual CPU, not per lb.

486SX = .1 gram

486DLC = .12

486DX4 = .19

486+DX2 = .20

So how much you can get out of any given scrap depends on the amount of recoverable gold, and the skill/experience of the individual refiner.

Scott

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

@.33 grams per chip that puts todays value at $17.88 per chip. Barren is paying $17 a chip right now. It has to cost more than $.88 worth of acids to process a chip and I can see him doing it for that little bit of money. So is his refining skills better and he is getting better yields? Just curious myself I dont refine I just send my stuff CPU's to barren.

Honestly, you would have to ask Barren. I know for a fact, beyond a doubt, without any reservations that the Pentium Pro's only yield on average .33 grams of Au. This is a fairly well known fact on GRF. All you have to do is google Pentium Pro Gold Refining Forum to come up with a huge number of posts on the subject. It's one of the most sought after, and misrepresented material that individual refiners deal with. They are almost mythical. People see that huge CPU with the huge gold plated heat spreader and loose all reason. They regularly sell on ebay for far more than their actual value. Matter of fact, if you pay attention to the CPUs on ebay, you will notice the same pictures of the same CPUs being sold by different people. They are used as a commodity really.

Imagine this, buying gold coins or bars on ebay is a very iffy proposition. Some people will drill, and fill with lead and/or tungsten to approximate the same density/weight that gold has. However, it's very difficult to fake a CPU. And the value is perceived where a gold bar or coin is not a perceived value, but exact, or at least as close as you can get. Because of these reasons, people buy and sell them as the price of gold goes up or down. They are traded back and forth like a commodity. So the actual value is far different.

To be honest, I am not so sure Barren is refining any of the CPUs he's buying, I would suspect, because of posts made by him on GRF and conversations I have had with other refiners and customers that Barren is selling them on ebay, and not refining them. However, I only suspect and to be fair to Barren, I don't actually know what he is doing with the CPUs. I can tell you this however, at $17 each, he's not refining them and making any money. I know that for a fact and would stake my reputation as a Man, as a refiner and as a human being on that statement, without any reservation whatsoever.

If done correctly, and you are able to purchase your consumables at decent prices, meaning you have to have a business license and purchase acids in 55 gallon drums, you can probably work the cost per CPU below .50 cents.

Scott

Originally Posted by NobleMetalWorks

Honestly, you would have to ask Barren. I know for a fact, beyond a doubt, without any reservations that the Pentium Pro's only yield on average .33 grams of Au. This is a fairly well known fact on GRF. All you have to do is google Pentium Pro Gold Refining Forum to come up with a huge number of posts on the subject. It's one of the most sought after, and misrepresented material that individual refiners deal with. They are almost mythical. People see that huge CPU with the huge gold plated heat spreader and loose all reason. They regularly sell on ebay for far more than their actual value. Matter of fact, if you pay attention to the CPUs on ebay, you will notice the same pictures of the same CPUs being sold by different people. They are used as a commodity really.

Imagine this, buying gold coins or bars on ebay is a very iffy proposition. Some people will drill, and fill with lead and/or tungsten to approximate the same density/weight that gold has. However, it's very difficult to fake a CPU. And the value is perceived where a gold bar or coin is not a perceived value, but exact, or at least as close as you can get. Because of these reasons, people buy and sell them as the price of gold goes up or down. They are traded back and forth like a commodity. So the actual value is far different.

To be honest, I am not so sure Barren is refining any of the CPUs he's buying, I would suspect, because of posts made by him on GRF and conversations I have had with other refiners and customers that Barren is selling them on ebay, and not refining them. However, I only suspect and to be fair to Barren, I don't actually know what he is doing with the CPUs. I can tell you this however, at $17 each, he's not refining them and making any money. I know that for a fact and would stake my reputation as a Man, as a refiner and as a human being on that statement, without any reservation whatsoever.

If done correctly, and you are able to purchase your consumables at decent prices, meaning you have to have a business license and purchase acids in 55 gallon drums, you can probably work the cost per CPU below .50 cents.

Scott

Good info there. I never plan to work with acids but im a numbers man and thank you for all your input.

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