# Gold Content in Pentium Pro



## yossarian (May 10, 2012)

Hi,
I am new here and I know that there are many threads dedicated to this question, but since so many people are curious about this and ask this question repeatedly, I figured i would start a new thread so that more people will see this post. If I am out of line, I apologize and Mods please shut this thread down

Anyway, I work for an E-waste recycler and my boss just informed me that according to one of our refiners 1 ton (2000lbs) of Intel Pentium Pro CPUs contains 138 Troy Ounces of gold (from there you can work out the rest)

I would like to add that this is a large reputable refiner and I do trust their skill at refining and the accuracy of their figures, but understand that you may not.

Hope this helps


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## Anonymous (May 10, 2012)

That is pretty accurate.


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## glorycloud (May 10, 2012)

That would be about .4292 grams of gold per PPro
if my math is correct and their information is correct. 8)


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## philddreamer (May 10, 2012)

> That would be about .4292 grams of gold per PPro
> if my math is correct and their information is correct.



I agree with those numbers!

Phil


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## glorycloud (May 12, 2012)

That would put the value of the gold content one Pentium Pro 
at $21.80 with gold at $1,580.00 per troy ounce.


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## Anonymous (May 12, 2012)

Or 2.146 grams of gold per pound.$109.02 at $1580 per oz.


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## ericrm (May 12, 2012)

sorry but those number sound wrong to me
i have buying price list ,if i ship today, *not on ebay* at 125$ lbs
i wont buy your rafinery number...


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## glorycloud (May 12, 2012)

So, you have a buyer all lined up to buy from you at $125.00 per pound? Cool!
That means someone (hopefully your buyer) believes that the gold content per PPro 
should be at least what they are paying for them or .492 grams of gold at $1,580 prt troy ounce. 
(Five PPro's roughly make a pound by the way).

Of course they are probably things other that gold in a PPro that would have 
value as well and that would be factored in by a large refiner for sure.


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## ericrm (May 12, 2012)

i will need to specify, i have sold all my cpu to that person month after months for the last years, his price are constant and (as you suggested but your wrong)it is not me.
for the money i have send him in cpu, memory, hard drive boards, connector, pinsboards ,if he didnt sell or refine, right now he miss payment on his house.

i dont beleive that someone (that i never speak to but that i trust because the money is always good)will simply loose money to have fun making me beleive(me only a small quebecois without any influence on the gold market) that there is more gold in my cpu than there actualy his.

he never ask me to take care of my cpu so i doubt he is selling for collector.

that bring me to your last comment 
what other than gold can be recycled in a cpu that could be worth it (ceramic? copper?nickel?tungten)anyone have a clue?


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## Anonymous (May 12, 2012)

I have one of the highest paying buyers in the industry.He is also one of the largest buyers in the industry.He pays $100/lb for PPros.Most of his pricest are so competitive,that it is not worth me refining some of my material,unless I have a very large quantity.


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## glondor (May 12, 2012)

Do not forget, As Peter at EDI reminds me often.....Pt....pd....Silver. They are all in there. Pay for the AU content, profit is the rest. I am not convinced that we, as home refiners can do a proper job with (certain)ceramics. (with out redoing material endlessly.)


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## NobleMetalWorks (May 12, 2012)

Some people purchase coins as their precious metals investment, other people buy bullion. The problem with this i that there i so much counterfeit bullion and coins on the market, there is a good chance that what you purchase is fake.

With e-scrap, it's different. People speculate about the gold content, which drives the prices per each of these CPU's over their real value in precious metals. People often purchase Pentium Pros and other ceramic CPU's not to process, but rather as a way of investing in gold. I have said this before in other threads, but I'll say ii again here. If you watch the people buying and selling Pentium Pros on eBay, you will notice that they are buying, and selling within the same group of people often times, they are profit taking by buying and selling CPU's for their perceived value. Some are buying, and then sitting on them.

So you have two different values on these CPU's. You have the real, recovered/refined, precious metal value, and you have the perceived value they trade at. Real value might be somewhere around half as much as the perceived value is. So a Pentium Pro, processed for it's PM is worth around $20 but the CPU whole on eBay is worth around $40.

A word to the wise, never base the real value of any e-waste by what someone is willing to pay for it, but rather how much actual value it has. I have yet to find any refiner who will pay more than $10 per CPU, which would be around $50lb. That's your number. Pay anything more and you are not making money anymore, you are just recovering precious metals. Also think about this. Lb per lb, Pentium Pros do not bear as much gold as a lb of double gold cap 486s. That is to say there is more gold in a lb of 486s than there is in a lb of Pentium Pros. So if you are buying by the lb, you can pay more for double gold caps, than you can for Pentium Pros.



Scott


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## glondor (May 13, 2012)

Very sound advise from Sbrown, however......any one want to sell me 1000 pounds double gold cap 486 cpu's for $ 50 per pound??? I will take all you can sell me.


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## NobleMetalWorks (May 13, 2012)

I know someone who has over 800 lbs of double gold caps, only problem is he won't sell them for less than $107 lb.


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## Marcel (May 13, 2012)

You cannot trust market prices with e-scrap. Just got to know to a guy who told be, that he bought several buckets full of CPUs over the last 3 years with his "playmoney", hoping that they will return a good profit. Needless to say that he neither is a specialist on electronics nor on refining. A lot of people do that on Ebay. They learn about PMs in electronics, then decide to invest some money in it, driving prices up to a ridiculous level. 
...but at the end of the day, if only they wait long enough, it may turn out as a good business after all, who knows?


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## NobleMetalWorks (May 13, 2012)

This is what I have done, this will not work for everyone but it has served me well since before I started refining precious metals.

I tag each lot so I can track what I paid for it, and other information. After I completely process any given material I weigh only the gold, I base everything on only the value of gold, any other metals I simply consider extra, I record it but I do not figure it into my cost/profit ratio. It's my buffer so to speak. Once I have the total weight in gold, I can figure what I have paid per ounce. I track all of this on an excel spreadsheet. I have a cell that I can type in the desired profit margin, and another that tells me what price gold needs to be, to make my profit margin. And yet still another cell that will flag whenever the market price is over the amount I need it to be at, to make the profit margin I want.

This works out great for me because I make so much more on most of the scrap, than I expected, so I am almost always over what my target profit margin is. As I can afford to retain more and more precious metals, I will move my profit margin up the scale until the amount is what I need and I am able to retain more precious metals. For right now I am at 100% profit before I figure the cost to process.

So any given day/week I know exactly how much gold I need to sell, in order to at least keep the profit margin I desire. I have been lucky, I have yet to refine a lot and not have it over my target profit margin. This excel sheet will not truly show it's value until I start retaining some of the metals I am refining, currently I sell everything and put it right back into the business.


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## radical351 (May 14, 2012)

i was searching the web months ago and came across this web site. 
http://www.ozcopper.com/computer-cpu-gold-yields/ 

it states the ppro has 1 gram of gold in it.

ray


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## Barren Realms 007 (May 14, 2012)

radical351 said:


> i was searching the web months ago and came across this web site.
> http://www.ozcopper.com/computer-cpu-gold-yields/
> 
> it states the ppro has 1 gram of gold in it.
> ...



Isn't that interesting. They show the same gold content in CPU's as our infamous list of CPU's with gold content yield. I wonder where they got thier info.


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## Spike830 (Jun 14, 2012)

SBrown, any chance I could converse w you on getting a start in this business?


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## rucito (Jun 15, 2012)

Тhis is what I found in Wiki
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Intel_Pentium_Pro_microprocessors
PPRO are produced by two different technologies and maybe this is the reason for the different content of gold


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