# How much gold does Intel Core 2 Duo contain?



## Zolotov (Mar 8, 2017)

I am offered 9 pieces of Intel Core 2 Duo (code T5200) :






and I would like to ask if someone already tested how much gold does it contain? Because there are lists with CPUs out there on the net, saying it has low yield (<0.05 gram per CPU), but there are many references that some lists contain wrong data, so I don't know whom to believe. Maybe someone here tested this CPU model for gold content?


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## jimdoc (Mar 8, 2017)

I hope you aren't going to be asking about every little thing you find, because that would get old real quick.


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## aga (Mar 8, 2017)

Having done a tiny amount of research, the exact gold content of a CPU depends on the make, model, date/place of manufacture, and the exact batch made at that time.

Process variances make that slightly different from chip-to-chip, even when they are from the same batch.
(the exact manufactured gold content will never be the same amount you recover)

Next is how efficient your recovery process is for that particular set of materials/mechanical structures in that chip, and whether any mistakes are made.

For these reasons, best to take the view that <50mg is the best info available.

How exactly were you thinking of processing those nasty nasty fibre cpus ?


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## rickbb (Mar 8, 2017)

One thing is certain, with only 9 chips there won't be enough gold to bother with.


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## anachronism (Mar 8, 2017)

I promise you that you will be wasting your time processing 9 of these. Wait till you have a few hundred. They are worth more sold than the gold you will get.


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## patnor1011 (Mar 8, 2017)

Some escrap buyers do pay good money for reusable core 2 duo cpu. 
9 of them? Take it if they are free. If they want money for them and you want to get them for gold recovery then forget it.


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## Zolotov (Mar 9, 2017)

anachronism said:


> I promise you that you will be wasting your time processing 9 of these. Wait till you have a few hundred. They are worth more sold than the gold you will get.



that's what I was trying to find out, how much is "less than 0.05" ?
Because 0.05 x 9 = 0.45 (grams)
0.45g is the amount of gold in ceramic AMD K5, would you throw away a K5 ?
0.45g = 18 bucks! 
That's why it is so important to know how much is "less than 0.05" , a hundred of 0.05s is 5 grams of gold. but a hundred of 0.005s is half of a gram.


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## g_axelsson (Mar 9, 2017)

Look at boardsort and see what they offer for the CPU:s, then you can get an idea of how much gold there is.

Another way, calculate the volume of the plating based on the number of pins and the geometry.

Göran


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## Zolotov (Mar 9, 2017)

aga said:


> Having done a tiny amount of research, the exact gold content of a CPU depends on the make, model, date/place of manufacture, and the exact batch made at that time.


Do you think those 9 would be enough to obtain visible gold ? lets say each cpu will have 0.01 grams of gold (not 0.05 as stated in the docs). Then 9 x 0.01 will be about 100 milligrams. Will I able to see it with my eyes ? Because I would make the process just to find out , for the sake of statistics.



aga said:


> How exactly were you thinking of processing those nasty nasty fibre cpus ?


Nasty? Why nasty? I saw this video and found nothing complicated in it:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-mB6xZLXOxw

maybe I am missing something?


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## Zolotov (Mar 9, 2017)

g_axelsson said:


> Another way, calculate the volume of the plating based on the number of pins and the geometry.



ok. this is easy. but what is the thickness a pin could have?

Is gold located on pins only ?


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## anachronism (Mar 9, 2017)

Visible gold from 9 CPUs of that type- not likely. 

Reagents used to process it- more than the value of the gold. 
Time spent to attain less gold than you can see - wasted. 

Sometimes it's good to process material that isn't cost effective in order to learn something. This isn't one of those times. Then again you don't really seem to be listening to what people are saying and I suspect you'll go and process them anyway. That's your call entirely, however when you ask "where is my gold" people won't be queuing up to assist. 

On these chips the gold is on the pins and possibly an extremely light coating on the underside of the heatspreader.

Jon


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## aga (Mar 9, 2017)

Nice video. Shame he didn't show a final weight.

Using the information from that video, $15 to $20 of gold is about 0.4 to 0.5g, so let's use the 0.4g figure.

0.4g / 50 CPUs = 0.008g/cpu, or *8mg* per nasty fibre CPU.

He ended up with 90g of pins, so 90/0.4 = about 4.5mg gold per gramme of pins.

9 green fibre CPUs will give at most 72mg, worth at most $2.8

Stripping those pins takes time, and if the heat is too high they fly off the fibre and go everywhere.
I finished doing about 250 of them yesterday with a blowtorch to end up with 440g of pins & junk. 
It was Nasty and i will not be doing it again.

There is more visible gold on the fibres, but the amount is so small it isn't worth chasing.


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## g_axelsson (Mar 9, 2017)

It is possible to refine the gold from just nine CPU:s but you need to know what you are doing.

This is one of my tests and the result is a button of 10 mg. It isn't that different from running a fire assay except I probably have much higher losses.
http://goldrefiningforum.com/phpBB3/viewtopic.php?f=52&t=23737

Zolotov, I would NOT recommend you to start with refining this little amount of gold. As I understand you have yet to do any refining at all. I strongly suggest you start with contact fingers.

Göran


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