- If there's one thing people around the office know me for
it's that I wear driving gloves.
I don't wear driving gloves anymore,
but I do like Logitech and I do like cars.
(bell chimes)
So this could be a very interesting combo.
This is a thousand dollars racing wheel
and a $350 set of pedals from a company
whose last racing wheel was like 300 bucks with both.
The market for direct drive wheels like this has really
been going up with Fanatec CSL DD.
I think Thrustmaster just launched one a couple days ago,
so it'll be interesting to see how this performs
because at the price point, this is a hefty the ask.
But I can't wait to check out what's inside.
Unlike the Thrustmaster or the Fanatec options,
Logitech is selling this as a kit.
So when you get the wheel, which I assume is this thing,
okay, cool, cool.
This is impressive.
Okay, the thousand dollars price point.
I'm kind of starting to feel it.
All right.
The previous generation Logitech wheel, eh.
It was a good way to get into racing games,
but not very well built.
This, by contrast, feels really nice.
Nice buttons, these paddles.
Click the paddle, David click the click the paddle.
It feels pretty good but it's not clear
if you're gonna be able to buy separate wheels.
I imagine, because there is a quick disconnect
on the back of here, then you can take this on and off,
that they will sell other cool branded wheels.
That's...
Okay, this thing is massive.
The nice thing about the Fanatec option
is it's pretty compact.
This is a bit of a chungus.
It's 15 pounds.
Power cable, and a chungus power brick.
300 watts, wow!
Ah, that looks like a table mount, good.
Ah, man. These table clamps are always underwhelming.
This is a thousand dollars product and it's just like,
it's a plastic screw and plastic housing.
I mean realistically if you're using a wheel like this,
you probably shouldn't mount it to your desk.
You probably got some sort of, like a wheel frame
or something, but this is a little disappointing
on first glance.
Yeah. Okay, cool, little cover.
It's got little like ball bearing things
to hold it in place.
Now let's try this.
Okay. It works.
(groaning)
It really does work.
It feels cheap but it does work.
In terms of the wheel, we got our X, Y, A, B,
left trigger, right trigger, since this is the Xbox version.
There is a PlayStation version.
They're the same price.
They do both work for PC.
So if you play on PC you're welcome to buy
whatever version you like.
On the inside there there's four pins.
Those are gonna connect to four little contacts
on our quick disconnect.
It's keyed so you can't put it in the wrong way.
So make sure you line that up
and then you wanna pull this back.
Hmm, Fanatec lets you spin it infinitely,
There's no stops.
This one does have stops, but they are both direct drive.
This does use hall-effect sensors so it's not gonna
wear down any potentiometers or anything like that.
And it does feel nice and smooth.
It does have have their TRUEFORCE tech,
which, when they describe it to me, it's kind of like,
it's almost like having a speaker in the steering wheel
that gives you these finer inputs
at least on their older wheels.
Because this one's direct drive and it's just a big motor,
I imagine that feedback is also probably
just done by the motor.
We'll have to see how that feels.
Oh, I forgot there's a little OLED display on here.
Wow, that is tiny.
It's gotta be, like, this big, little OLED display there.
Oh that's lame.
On the back of this, for connectivity,
they just have a bunch of USB-A ports,
like the OG style like USB 2.0 type A ports.
There's a Micro-USB, which is lame in 2022.
That should be type C.
At the very least they have made this a molded cable
and you can see that it matches the profile
of the inside of that.
So once you push this in, it's not really gonna be affected
by side-to-side force, but you could very well, you know,
rip it out this way.
And these little prongs on the Micro-B port are gonna
wear down over time.
Now the type A ports aren't gonna be protected
from left and right movement, so if you do wire this up,
man, maybe just put some cable strain reliefs or something,
'cause I can see someone very easily damaging this.
It's not even, like, tight fitting.
Like pft.
Kind of disappointing on a thousand dollars device.
Hopefully the performance still lives up to it.
There's stuff in here.
Ooh.
This looks promising so far.
I'm seeing a lot of metal. That's good.
Buying pedals that are plastic and you get a ton of flex.
These feel pretty good though.
This 350 bucks, this feels like a lot better value
than this steering wheel.
But, I mean, I guess we'll see.
The thing I always find with, like, racing pedal clutches
is they're always super linear.
It's just like a lever, when in real life,
your clutch will kind of, you'll feel the point
at which it disengages and engages.
The brake pedal is load cell, which is cool.
And the gas, it's okay for gas to just be a lever,
'cause in a real car that's what it is.
Okay. Oh Jesus.
Yeah. Replacement springs, cool.
And look at that replacement brake foam?
I don't know what you call these.
Rubbers? Brake rubbers?
Let's see, I wanna make the, okay, all right.
Actually that came out really easily.
Did I just get it stuck now? Oh god.
There we go. Okay, it's a bit tight.
You tighten the thing and then it's good.
Oops.
So when you're pressing the pedal, at first you feel
the compression of this soft foam and then you
kind of hit a wall, which would be this much harder rubber.
There's probably a couple different presets
they give you like yeah, there you go.
They give you a chart so you can replace the pieces,
A and B and then you're always gonna have one of these.
They're not really labeled though.
They are kind of labeled. Does that look like a label?
Ah man. Okay, Logitech again colors.
If the system is colors, does that look like the same brown?
And you can almost say that that's the yellow.
Maybe it's, these are the natural colors of these materials
but make sure that the color in your manual matches,
or at the very least dye them so that they look
really different so you can't screw this up.
Okay. We can also switch the springs.
Yeah, okay. That one's white.
So that's the lightest one.
This one is brown.
The clutch pedal has red, which is the second heaviest
and the gas has yellow, which is the second lightest.
Let me put these on my feet and see how they feel.
Man. Playing a racing game without a cockpit.
Kinda lame.
- [David] Who has room for a cockpit?
I do.
They did a reasonable job with the rubber,
kinda anti-slide stuff.
Obviously, when you're getting into it,
you're still gonna be pushing the pedals forward.
I think my gas pedals a little too firm
and the clutch is a little too soft, so I might swap those.
They feel pretty good though.
There is a bit of play left and right.
Not only are the pedals themselves moving,
but the actual, like, metal piece that holds them in place,
kind of the channel that they're in,
is also flexing quite a bit.
I don't know if it's because the rest of it is plastic.
What's holding that metal piece in is plastic.
Oh cool, the pedals are adjustable.
You can slide each pedal around as much as you want.
You can also adjust the pedal faces themselves.
You see that we're using these holes right now,
but you could move them over here,
over here, or up there, anywhere you want.
Interesting. They are modular, which is cool.
Each pedal connects with a little, looks like RJ-11 ,
or maybe RJ-9, kinda like a phone jack.
And then there is our USB, which is also Micro-USB, again.
(sighs)
This one I think is less of a problem
'cause there's these nice cable strain reliefs right here.
How are you gonna screw this up?
You're probably not going to.
But once you plug this other end,
here, let's just demo.
I don't know if it's the right way.
If it was type C, it wouldn't matter.
Oh, did I get it? Ho-ho, I got it.
All right, maybe it's not so bad.
I'm a professional plugger-in-to-port kinda guy, okay.
I do this for a living.
Okay, well let's set it up with the computer
and play some games.
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When I was plugging in the power I realized
it's got active cooling.
There's a fan in this thing.
You can hear it. You totally can hear it.
I felt it at the back. That's pretty cool.
I guess it's because it's pretty hot.
I like that everything is integrated in G HUB now.
You don't need to download discrete drivers.
It just automatically detected it.
And it's needs a firmware update.
Hey look it's got a little blinky lights when it's updating.
It's not blinking anymore, sorry.
- [David] God dangit. Oh, it blinked.
- It's blinking again.
- (grunts) Yeah, that's a good amount of torque.
I like this thing.
We have a Fanatec CSL DD2 upstairs,
and I think that thing can do 25 newton-meters,
but I usually set the peak around 12.
So, having your peak at around 11 is is pretty good.
The interesting thing is they call these dual clutch pedals.
Like that's the only car that would have paddles
is one with a dual clutch.
Okay, so maybe they're not talking
about a dual clutch transmission.
They're talking about, there are dual clutch pedals.
You can rebind them to pretty much anything, it looks like.
You can make them even your gas, I guess.
Because it's a load cell, you can actually set
the amount of force you apply.
A hundred kilograms. (grunts)
- There's no way you're gonna be doing that
without these mounted to a frame.
And I don't even think you're gonna be doing it.
even with it mounted to a frame.
That's like 120 pounds of force.
- [David] So you play it, the right pedal goes fast.
The second pedal-
- Wow, thanks.
Hey look, there's little bar graphs for them here.
Gas and clutch, super linear clutch.
I don't know what the other ones are.
We're playing the new Assetto Corsa Competisioni, I guess?
I don't know, I don't speak Italian or whatever that is.
It has TRUEFORCE support, that's why we're using it.
I usually play regular Assetto Corsa,
which we might try after, but for now, let's do this.
Okay, so I can pick a car.
Let's do the M6 GT3.
- [David] Surprise.
Use the wheel controller.
- Ah (beep)!
- It's so much easier to use a keyboard and mouse, dammit.
They're fine. I guess.
Practice. Yeah, let's do that.
Realism. Okay, let's try this thing.
(wheel rattles)
It's just like, you can hear the engine through the wheel.
It's really weird.
- [David] It sounds terrible.
- Yeah, it's a little like much sauce, honestly.
I really don't like the the TRUEFORCE.
It feels awful.
Just the whole wheel feels like
it's just vibrating constantly.
(wheel rattles)
Look, it sounds broken.
Oh my god, it's not shaking like it's broken.
This is so much better.
Oh my god.
Oh my god, I don't know why there's a racing line,
but whatever.
Okay, this is much better.
This is much better.
Oh my god, I'm going too fast for this car.
- [David] So, if you slow down before turns,
you'll be able to take them.
- Yeah, it's a great idea. I should do that.
Okay, it feels way better now that the whole
desk and steering wheel isn't shaking like a cheap toy.
(groans) Ooh, too much spice.
Okay, ow!
See that's what I mean.
Like there's some, there's some serious torque there.
It's nice.
It feels very crisp.
The force feedback feels pretty good.
I really did not like the TRUEFORCE thing
in Assetto Corsa or ACC.
Wow, this whole monitor is like, shaking.
This Ikea table is not built for racing sim. (laughs)
It's a good amount of feedback.
This is, like, as much as I would ever want.
It's one thing with the Fanatec that I have,
I'm always like, ah, I just want like
a little bit more feedback.
This is a little bit more, oh Jesus.
Oh my god. (laughs)
- [David] Let it go.
- Feels pretty good for a $350 set of pedals.
I'm pretty happy with those.
Surprisingly usable on a table.
Despite the monitor, like, going all over the place.
It'll be interesting to see when there's more wheel options.
I mean the stock wheel feels pretty good.
The build quality is nice.
It's got, I would say just the right amount
of force feedback.
I don't know if I'd want any more than this.
But for a thousand dollars, you gotta be pretty
into racing games to want spend that much money.
And that's not including pedals.
If you look at the competition,
the CSL DD with three pedals, like this,
and a wheel, is still less than just the base
and the wheel.
Thrustmaster just came out with their new direct drive base
that can do 10 newton-meters of torque
for around 650 US dollars.
It still kind of seems like the CSL DD from Fanatec
is the one to buy, just because it is so much cheaper.
This does feel like a really good experience.
I don't like TRUEFORCE that much.
Maybe other people do.
Your mileage may vary, but it does perform well.
It's just the price.
For a thousand dollars with a bunch of Micro B ports,
kind of disappointing.
I don't know.
I think if I was buying one of these, I'd probably
still go with the Fanatec, CSL DD with the boost pack,
'cause then you're pretty much in the same neighborhood
in terms of torque, for a lot less money.
And there is a lot more supported
custom wheels, for instance.
I'm sure Logitech is gonna come up with some more,
but Fanatec has lots.
And there's already a community behind them
building other custom wheels.
(horn honking) If this thing-
(horn honking)
If this thing were 500 bucks,
I think it would be an absolute steal.
For 750, maybe worth buying.
I think this is just a little too expensive.
So, thanks for watching.
If you like this video, maybe check out
one of the watch videos I did.
The Apple Watch Ultra.
That thing was pretty cool, although also very expensive.
Get subscribed. Goodbye.