Yeston's RX 9070 XT graphics card comes with a startling (ahem) innovation: an integrated SPU

Hardware makers are always trying to find innovative ways to differentiate their products from the other offerings out there, some of which are bold and clever ideas, and others - well, not so much.

So, here's a new one in the world of GPUs: fragrance.

Yes, in a similar idea to the built-in fragrance dispensers that ASUS has been incorporating into some laptop models, and indeed peripherals, Yeston has equipped its new RX 9070 XT Sakura Atlantis graphics card with faint hint of sea breeze.

Or that's the idea, anyway, with the smell supplied by a compact little scent stick tucked away down in the heatsink. We call it an SPU or 'Smell Processing Unit' because, why not - doesn't a silly idea deserve a silly name, after all?

Gamers Nexus performed a (literal) deep dive into the innards of the Yeston graphics card to discover the fragrance stick, and you can see the results in the above YouTube video (which was highlighted by VideoCardz).

Why is the smell ocean breeze, you might be wondering? The connection, tenuous as it is, would appear to be the mention of 'Atlantis' in the product name. (There seems to be a missed opportunity here, though, in that the graphics card isn't water-cooled - you just get a trio of plain, old, boring fans).

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There is an ocean theme here, as you might guess (Image Credit: Yeston)

The fragrant catch

Assuming you enjoy the idea of a warm scent emanating from your GPU during gaming sessions, the catch to this invention appears to be that the fragrance stick isn't replaceable. So, once it has run out of ocean scent, the graphics card won't smell of anything. Well, except for maybe warm plastic (and hopefully never anything beyond warm).

As for us, we're quite happy to have our PC smell of nothing, thank you very much. But of course, you might enjoy an accompanying olfactory experience with your hardware, in which case, you should definitely check out the aforementioned products from ASUS.

Those include the ASUS Adol 14 Air Fragrance Edition notebook and the ASUS Fragrance Mouse (which actually is refillable, courtesy of a removable vial that holds aromatic oils, no less).

Mind you, should you be a big fan of this idea in general, and go ahead to amass a collection of these perfume emitting devices, the combinations of multiple smells might be difficult to stomach.

Of course, the concept of being able to buy an RX 9070 (or 9070 XT) GPU at a reasonable price that's not difficult to stomach - at the MSRP, or close to it - is a novel enough idea right now, just on its own. No smelly SPU-related innovations required.

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