Scrap CPU buyer for UK recyclers — paid by the part, not by the kilogram.
A typical kilo of mixed pulled CPUs contains 30–60 chips. Sold to scrap at around £13-16/kg you get pennies per chip — each working chip is worth £20-£100+ on resale. Sold to ChipFlip per part you get £20–£109 each — typically 50–100× the scrap rate for working stock.
The disruption: per-part beats per-kg by 50–100×
Most UK recyclers, e-waste centres, and strip-out yards sell pulled CPUs to scrap merchants by weight. The scrap rate is set by the metals content — gold, copper, palladium, lead — and works out at roughly £13-16 per kilogram for mixed CPU pulls. That's pennies per chip, regardless of whether the chip is a 14th-gen i9 or a Pentium 4.
ChipFlip values working components by what they're worth on the secondary resale market — not what their metal content weighs. Through our parent company Pyco Renew Ltd, we test, refurbish, and resell into the UK and EU B2B refurb channel. Anything that boots cleanly pays component value, not metal value.
Real example: 1.0kg of mixed Intel 14th-generation CPUs is roughly 40 chips. At ChipFlip Grade A pricing — i9-14xxx at £109 and i7-14xxx at £87 — a balanced bag of 14th-gen i7/i9 pulls is worth £3,500–£4,300 to us. The same kilo at the scrap weighbridge: about £15. The buyback channel exists because the gap is enormous.
Who this is for
UK e-waste recyclers
You already strip boards as part of your processing flow. Divert working CPUs and RAM out of the per-tonne scrap channel and into per-part buyback before they hit the smelter.
Strip-out yards
You pull components for the metals — but every working chip in that bucket is worth more whole than melted. We pay for the chip, you keep the rest of the board for normal scrap.
ITAD providers
Higher-yield resale path for the working components in your processing stream. Per-batch wipe records included for storage drives.
IT repair shops & refurbishers
Steady drip of pulled stock from upgrades, RMAs, and dead boards. Bulk batches get reserved bench capacity and per-line grading reports.
What we pay for working pulled stock
Intel desktop (i3 to i9)
i9-14xxx up to £109, i7-14xxx £87, i5-14xxx £51. 12th and 13th gen close behind. Older generations from i3-7xxx welcome — we buy the lot, just per-part.
Older Intel Core generations
Don't think your i5-6500 from 2015 is worth scrapping? Per-part it pays £5–£14 — well above weighbridge value. Anything from 3rd gen up gets a Grade A quote.
DDR4 & DDR5 memory
Per-stick pricing on consumer UDIMM. 128GB DDR5 up to £93, 64GB up to £46, 32GB up to £23, 16GB up to £11. Mixed sticks fine — sort by speed/density or send mixed and we'll grade.
NVMe & SSD drives
Per-capacity pricing on tested-working drives 256GB and larger. A 2TB NVMe pays £28, a 4TB pays £56. Per-batch wipe record on receipt.
What we don't buy
Motherboards, GPUs, HDDs (mechanical), DDR2 / DDR3, PSUs, cases — we route any non-buy items through our WEEE channel at no charge. Also not on the fixed consumer list: consumer AMD Ryzen / Threadripper desktop CPUs (we don't buy those at all). Server-grade Xeon, EPYC, and ECC RDIMM / LRDIMM server RAM — these we do buy, but on receipt-quote rather than fixed price. WhatsApp a breakdown.
How it works for trade volume
Send a list (or photos)
WhatsApp +44 7908 749694 or email info@chipflip.co.uk with a rough breakdown — generations, count, mixed weight is fine. Reply within working hours during UK business days.
Recurring postage runs
Weekly, fortnightly, or monthly schedules. You arrange postage with any UK carrier — Royal Mail Tracked for small lots, DPD or Evri for larger ones. We email the address as soon as you commit.
Mixed batches welcome
No need to sort by chip type or generation. Send mixed in a sack or shipping box, we sort and grade on receipt. Saves you the labour-cost on your end.
Per-line grading report
Bench-tested on receipt — boots clean, gets Grade A. Cosmetic flaws drop to Grade B (80–90% of list). Untested-working pays Grade C deposit (60–80%) with the balance after we test. Photo evidence on every regrade.
Recurring sellers
Repeat sellers can build up a regular pattern with us — same per-part rate each batch, no extra admin. Faster Payments after the grading report's accepted.
Volume uplift on Grade A
Sustained volume earns 5–15% over the public list price. Sliding scale based on monthly throughput — every kilo of clean pulled stock gets you a better rate next batch.
Worked example: 5kg of mixed pulled CPUs
Imagine your weekly pull rate is 5kg of mixed Intel Core desktop CPUs across 10th–14th generations. Realistic mix:
- ~80 i7 chips (mixed 10th–14th gen) — average £55 each Grade A → £4,400
- ~60 i5 chips — average £25 each Grade A → £1,500
- ~40 i3 chips — average £8 each → £320
Total Grade A buyback: ~£6,220 for 5kg. The same 5kg sold to scrap at ~£15/kg: ~£75. Even a 60% Grade A yield rate (4kg working / 1kg scrap) still nets you £3,700+ from us versus ~£75 from the weighbridge.
This is the gap that exists week-in, week-out. The reason most yards don't capture it isn't that they don't know — it's that selling per-part used to mean photographing 200 chips for eBay. We removed that step: WhatsApp a list, lock a quote in 30 seconds, post the lot in a single padded box.
Compliance & paperwork
- Operated by Pyco Renew Ltd, UK-based waste carrier and IT processor
- Compliant with the Scrap Metal Dealers Act 2013 — one-time photo ID and proof of address on first sale, kept on file 2 years
- Multi-pass cryptographic erase on every storage drive — wipe record per batch for your ITAD records
- Waste Transfer Notes issued per batch, retained 2 years
- Secure Disposal statement and Modern Slavery statement available on request
- after the third batch — moves you off per-transaction admin and onto per-batch payment
Common questions from recyclers and yards
Or build your own quote in 30 seconds
If you'd rather price it yourself first, head to the live quote tool — tap + on each chip type and capacity, see the running total, lock in when you're ready. You'll get a fixed price valid for 7 days plus the postal address by email.
For repeat trade volume, also see the trade & B2B page with details on bulk batches, scheduled pickups, and per-batch destruction notes.