Zotac launches a new fragrance line just for gamers — the company’s April Fool’s joke turned to reality

Gaming hardware company Zotac, known for its graphics cards, mini-PCs, and gaming handheld consoles, just launched a new product line designed for gamers. According to the Facebook post of HKEPC [machine translated], the company is launching the F5 Esports Perfume designed for players “to keep their body smell refreshed in intense gaming, fight mental fatigue, improve attention, and speed up reactions.”

Zotac first released an April Fool’s post about this fragrance earlier this year on the Zotac news page, saying that the fragrance uses a “proprietary blend of caffeine, taurine, and other secret ingredients.” It also listed what F5 smells like — a combination of sea breeze, cypress, mint, and white musk, delivering an aquatic and woody scent. We’re unsure if the details on this page are still accurate, but one of our teammates here at Tom’s Hardware got their hands on it during Computex 2025. According to them, the fragrance smells sweet and is suitable for everyone.

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The box says that the F5 is Eau de Parfum, meaning it’s supposed to last about four to six hours. Its top note lasts about 30 minutes, while the heart or body notes stay on for another half hour. Its base note stays on the longest, but according to our experience, the scent sticks around for just a couple of hours, at best.

This isn’t the first time a PC gaming company has dabbled in olfactory accessories. Asus launched a laptop with a fragrance dispenser last year, designed for laptop users who are also into fashion. It then followed this up with an aromatic wireless mouse to keep your hand and workstation smelling fresh. If you’re into gaming but want to smell something nice coming from your GPU instead of melting plastic, you can choose some of Yeston’s Radeon RTX 9070 XT models, which come with a fragrance module in their shroud.

HKEPC says that the fragrance is in open beta, and you need to apply by June 13 to try on this unique gaming accessory. We hope that this beta test is successful and Zotac decides to launch this as a regular product. After all, we also want to check out the other scents listed on its page, like Ctrl+Alt+Scent, Critical Hit, and GG.

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