Pentium Pro

I have to hand it to computer makers; They are very complex machines, with very expensive components, but somehow they are still made affordable. One example of an expensive component is the CPU.

The CPU, central processing unit, is the place where the computer does all of its "thinking" or computing. Most high end processors today can comfortably run at 2.4 GHz, aka 2.4 billion calculations a second. That means in the time it takes it to add two numbers, light has traveled 2 meters. The Intel Pentium Pro was made in 1995, and it was clocked at 200MHz.

Technology has, over the past century, been becoming more and more dependent on rare elements, and to get the Pentium Pro do go as fast as it did, Intel needed to build it using GOLD. Each Pentium Pro chip, pictured below, has ~1 gram of gold in it. According to Kitco, this means that each Pentium Pro chip has ~ $43 worth of gold in it right this moment.

Two bins full of chips, each containing one gram of gold.
The total gold value of all these chips exceeds $2500.

As a Scrapper, when I see this type of opportunity, I jump after it. The scrap gold community may not understand those who scrap all metal, but they should understand that these gold computer chips are not smoke and mirrors.