I was bored at lunch the other day so I did some math... I decided to figure out how many total found resources it costs to craft a gem of the highest quality in Diablo III.
The highest quality gem that can drop is a Flawless Square (which, after the 1.0.5 patch, will be the only quality that drops in Inferno difficulty). There are three levels of quality above that which can be unlocked by leveling the gem crafter: Perfect Square, Radiant Square, and Star. After that there are three more levels of quality which you must find the recipes for: Flawless Star, Perfect Star, and Radiant Star. (You must find the recipe for each quality for each gem type, totaling 12 gem recipes in all.)
So, in order to craft a gem of each of the higher qualities starting with only Flawless Square gems (and assuming your jeweler has the required recipes) the following resources will be required:
Perfect Square
Total Flawless Square: 3
Total Tome of Secrets: 3
Total Gold: 30K
Radiant Square = 3 Perfect Square gems, 6 Tome of Secrets, 50K Gold
Total Flawless Square: 9
Total Tome of Secrets: 15
Total Gold: 140K
Star = 3 Radiant Square gems, 9 Tome of Secrets, 80K Gold
Total Flawless Square: 27
Total Tome of Secrets: 54
Total Gold: 500K
Flawless Star = 3 Star gems, 12 Tome of Secrets, 100K Gold
Total Flawless Square: 81
Total Tome of Secrets: 174
Total Gold: 1.6M
Perfect Star = 3 Flawless Star gems, 15 Tome of Secrets, 200K Gold
Total Flawless Square: 243
Total Tome of Secrets: 547
Total Gold: 5M
Radiant Star = 3 Perfect Star gems, 20 Tome of Secrets, 400K Gold
Total Flawless Square: 729
Total Tome of Secrets: 1661
Total Gold: 5.4M
Cheers,
420
EDIT (10/3/12): Here are the current Auction House prices for comparison:
Radiant Star Amethyst: 9M Gold
Radiant Star Emerald: 14M Gold
Radiant Star Ruby: 18.5M Gold
Radiant Star Topaz: 14.3M Gold
Tome of Secrets: 168 Gold
