ASUS manufactures some of the world’s finest motherboards and graphics cards, while they have also been the main driving force behind the netbook industry. In fact, if you think about it there are few computer related products that ASUS is not manufacturing these days. This brings us to something a little different from ASUS today and that is a truly high-end CPU cooler.

In the past we have looked at ultra cheap budget coolers from ASUS, as well as a few attempts at the big time. The last real cooler design that we looked at was the V-60, which delivered a surprising level of performance at a very reasonable price. However this was back in 2007 and since then we have not taken the time to check out another ASUS brand cooler.

That was of course until now. Today ASUS has three key CPU cooling families that feature universal coolers. There is the Knight, Square, and Triton series, and each now offers a range of impressive coolers. The Triton series has been making the most noise, and the recently announced 81, 85, and 88 models are the cause of all this commotion.

Since we are yet to check out any of these new coolers, we thought it best to start with the Triton 81. This new cooler was designed to be truly universal, supporting the Intel LGA775 socket along with the new LGA1366 socket, while AMD’s latest processors were also covered. While still quite large, the Triton 81 is not based on a massive heatsink, but because it does feature a pair of 90mm fans the overall dimensions appear to be much larger than they really are.