Speaking as someone who refined himself for a while, the average large socket motherboard produced about ¼ gram. Or $3-$5 in gold yeald. Though the silver, (1-3gr) nickel (avg ½lb) copper and brass recovery, about a pound. And a whole lot of fiber plastics, and ceramics scrap. You figure even on an industry scale of hundreds of tonns you're loosing almost half the value in materials and energy, and the prices really do make sense.
Ignoring any comments about what you may see find or hear (the exception in escrap always exists) board sort is honestly one of the highest payers in the country outside of direct refining sales. And.presumably no one here using boardsort is in the realm, personally, to be making much more than this going to a refiner. General escrap (mobo, peripheral cards etc, not the higher end stuff) really is pegged to copper values. Where gold comes into play you can see the difference easily. Look at anyones comparison between finger cards and fingerless. Or gold ram vs mixed (silver peg) vs fingerless ram (copper). How much gold is in a pound of ram, veritably between 5-8 dollars depending on size format and ics among other issues. So that $11 you get today for gold ram he'll get $15 /lb for 10 tonns of it. You'd get about 10-12. If you have enough for a refiner to take it at all.
Conclusion; watch copper prices not gold. Copper goes up escrap goes up. Copper goes down escrap goes down.
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