A precious metal sputter target has a composition selected from the group consisting of platinum, palladium, rhodium, iridium, ruthenium, osmium and single-phase alloys thereof. The sputter target's grain structure is at least about 99 percent recrystallized and has a grain size of less than about 200 .mu.m for improving sputter uniformity. The cryogenic method for producing these sputter targets is also effective for improving sputter performance for silver and gold sputter targets.