How much gold is in your computer’s CPU pins?

Just like your laptop, desktop components have a shiny gold plate covering the pins, connectors, and other contacts. There is enough gold that some people will spend time trying to extract it from electronic devices. If you have the chemicals/equipment and are comfortable with the process, you can remove small amounts, almost grains, from your processor. Iman’s YouTube channel Gold Recovery showed that, out of 150 processors (Intel Pentium 4), they recovered just under a gram of gold in total.

It’s not much, and given how rigorous and involved the process is, you’ll probably spend more on equipment and chemicals than you would get from gold. This is because the CPU pins are gold plated, meaning the parts themselves are not real gold. Think of it as a small thin sheet or coat of paint on another metal, but done electrochemically. Gold plating is a process, known as electroplating, that passes an electric current through a heated liquid bath. In the bath, the gold ions bind to the underlying metal; in this case, the base metal is usually a less expensive alloy, such as brass or copper alloys.

This is done for cost reasons and because of the physical properties of gold. For example, the thin layer of gold protects the underlying metal from corrosion because gold does not oxidize or rust when exposed to air or moisture. It also has good conductivity, which allows electricity to pass through more efficiently. Gold is malleable and ductile, which is essential for the metal pins and contact pads to maintain good contact with the motherboard socket without wearing out or losing connection. Finally, gold plating protects other components from high temperatures, including those above 257 degrees Fahrenheit.

It’s generally not worth mining gold, as the cost exceeds the profit you’d get from a handful of samples. This is mostly worth it on an industrial scale, not in a small lab or personal setup. It’s also not the safest process to do at home (it’s highly recommended to send it to an e-waste disposal service or refiner instead) because it involves dangerous chemicals that must be handled carefully under a fume hood.

Additionally, you should never throw toxic waste into your kitchen. Additionally, it doesn’t matter what equipment you are handling, since the process and recommendations are the same; mining gold from smartphones is similar to what you would do with computers. It may be more worth it if you can get hold of large quantities, especially from older electronics. Gold-plated electronics from the 1980s had a thicker coating than those found more recently.

Typically, the thickness was around 1 micrometer (µm) in the 1980s, compared to gold-plated components which are often 0.1 to 0.5 µm thick today. Then, of course, there’s a size difference: most of what you see today is much smaller than it was in the 1980s and 1990s. So if you have a collection of very old electronic equipment (and you don’t sell it for cash), you can get a little more gold. According to Phoenix Refining, “a computer board from the 1990s can produce between 1 and 5 grams of gold, while a modern smartphone contains only about 0.034 grams.” Keep in mind that these are different devices, but the gap is still quite large.