Fanatec CSL Elite - REALLY worth the EXTRA MONEY over G923?

oh boy don't you just love when a hobby becomes an obsession hi guys matthew here and welcome back again to my channel yes this is not the spot from where i usually talk to you but this sim chair is really comfy my review of it is coming out soon so be sure to subscribe for that one anyhow the reason why am i sitting here is to see what's the next step after logitech's g923 and thrustmaster's t300 rs gt which i just recently compared feel free to check those two out too is there anything worth considering that would top them out yes i know that would be a direct drive system but there is something in between that this fanatex belt driven wheel so today i wanted to check if this in between is worth over the standard offering or to be more precise is it worthy of cashing out 200 to 300 euros more to get basically the pinnacle of bell driven wheels what i have here is the latest csl elite wheelbase which is based on a belt driven system and this is actually one of their up-to-date one meaning that it supports both consoles and pc out of the box for which you have this button to switch between and it's 50 euros more expensive than the v 1.1 version the wheelbase itself is just a bit below five kilograms in weight which is a lot some of the wheelbase with the wheel and pedals don't weigh as much beside this wheelbase i have the csl elite pedal set together with the load cell brake mode and their club sport manual and sequential shifter which modes can easily be changed just by pulling this lever while you will also get an extra shift knob for that case you can just swap it up easily i also have their vrc wheel which is basically their standard base wheel it is usually a part of bundled offers as something to get you started but this one has some vrc livery on it and extra switches in some this is a bit more expensive than getting their bundled version of the csl elite wheelbase wheel and pedals but if you're not a person who plans to drive a manual you can easily go for that csl elite bundle which costs around 600 euros so the question is what do you get for 200 euros more compared to the more mainstream models like thrustmasters t300 rs or logitech's g923 first and foremost it's the build quality and finish everything you touch and grab feels like it came off from a real racing car basically everything is metal or high quality plastic in construction being it the wheelbase the wheel itself pedals or the club sport manual shifter which is this beautifully crafted giant metal brick it's not that the other two cannot compete in some areas but i feel like this takes that next step the csl elite pedals have this very cool looking rough texture coating to them while underneath it they are completely metal in construction aluminum in particular this is where the other more mainstream wheels just cannot compete but then again they weren't meant to compete against it to begin with so you right away know where that extra money is going to secondly in here we have a single belt drive system which can produce up to 6 newton meters of torque and that is compared to the other mainstream wheels a lot more especially to g923 which is more around 2 newton meters there's a lot of other things that come with this motor experience and force feedback wise but more on that later on thirdly the way you can customize and reuse your existing fanatic gear makes your upgrade path that much easier as everything is interchangeable the wheel that comes with this bundle is mostly metal in construction in combination with alcantara in the places where you grip your hand around it basically that's the whole rim from bottom to top up there you will also find a small led screen which indicates your speed and gear once you change it plus you can also use it when changing between different saved force feedback profiles and settings beside it you will find another set of brightly colored leds on the wheelbase itself which are here in the form of shift light indicator the flappy pedals are also metal these ones are covered in bright orange color and they have a nice clicky sound to it although the travel is a bit shorter than what i usually experience up until now and the gap left between it and the wheel is a bit smaller than i would like it has a lot of buttons on the main middle part of the wheel around its hub regular ones for console control like the analog d-pad and marked xbox switches and also added ones for the functionalities of the wheel itself you'll get an additional set of custom caps in case you want to swap them out for something more erasing specific the wheel is 30 centimeters in diameter and i found it to be a perfect fit for my case in regard of that size and shape of course this is not the only wheel they offer they have a bunch of others basically true life replicas like this porsche gt3r wheel that looks like someone pulled it off from well from a porsche gt3 car speaking of pulling things off this wheelbase has a quick release system similar to ones in real life cars this particular wheel i have is not quite there yet it has a locking hub but some of their more expensive wheels actually have that big ring that you just pull and pop the wheel goes off just like that as i mentioned these are the csl elite pedals with this cell brake mode which comes in as a separate add-on as in the most basic csl elite bundle you'll get a two pedal setup but in theory you could configure it to get it right from the get-go so you don't have to buy it separately plus probably with a little bit of a discount i do actually recommend it that you get it right away because with the load cell break mode you will basically hit two birds with one stone as you will get a clutch because the original brake pedal from the regular csl elite pedals moves to the left and becomes a clutch you also remove this hard rubber stopper to make it less stiff and more clutch like while the new pedal with the installed load cell brake will give you a much better feel of the brake as i mentioned earlier but i will point it out again the pedals have top notch build quality i could feel that right away when i was pulling them out of the box the installation of the wheelbase is very similar to thrustmasters with a big wrapping hand holding rubberized contact points it works really good blends the wheel completely but for this occasion i've decided to put it on a rig from next level racing the light so i didn't have to use it you have a standard pattern of holes beneath the wheelbase so you can mount it basically wherever you want the same goes for the pedals while i also in a way had to use the light rig because the club sport shifter doesn't have any standalone way of mounting it without needing to drill through something but it's sort of implicated that if you're building a setup like this you are going to have a rig or at least proper mounting on the other hand this csl elite pedal set could stand on its own it has a really big grip pads and i had no problems with them in that regard especially since they are also pretty heavy but as i already mentioned they also ended up being hard mounted onto the rig for which it has dedicated holes for connecting everything up fanatec uses rg12 jacks between each component so the back of the wheelbase sort of looks like a big switch rack but honestly i like it because it's really easy to replace a connector on the wire if something goes wrong while you have an option to connect the pedal separately if you want to do it through a usb connection while the usb connection on the wheel itself is for communicating with the pc or console naturally talking about connections ties together with the topic of control and this is where fanatec shines again through its software it lets you go really in depth settings wise they also let you save different profiles depending on the game you are playing because the experience is not always the same when jumping from game to game force feedback wise this is also where their phantom utility comes into play instead of going through the control panel you can use this more mainstream like approach although as for now i am kind of more fond of the layout that you get through the control panel enough about that how does the wheel and the whole system perform well at least to me to put it simply this is a completely different class compared to the other belgian systems you can easily see where the price difference goes it's there in your hands literally the force feedback and the preciseness of it is on another level especially compared to the gear driven wheel like the g923 and its g29 predecessor the output that you get is much more refined there is no notchy feel the only time you could sense that something is maybe off is during extreme situations edge case scenarios mostly when the wheel is not completely tuned in settings wise to a particular game but nothing to write home about depending on that the force feedback can vary if it's not properly calibrated which is why fanatec implemented profiles that can be loaded on the go depending on the game overall the force feedback is really strong and you will have to fight with it just like in real car while still having that veracity and force representation bringing the whole experience up a notch what's even more noteworthy is that this is actually fanatic's entry-level wheel the wheelbase and its drive mechanism is also really quiet although it has a fan running basically all the time so you will hear a noise coming out of it but other than that we don't have any other weird noises the pedal feel is excellent especially with the load cell mode for the brake i've used the 18 kilogram elastomer spring setup there is also a 40 and 90 kilogram of load pressure configuration in the bundle it really adds that level of realism you need to work your way through the upper end of the braking force which ends up being a positive thing as you could dance around the edge of just not locking the wheels up when driving without the abs it also brings up the brake resolution value from 12 to 16 bits but that's in case you use the pedals over a standalone usb connection instead over the wheelbase using a rg12 connection as for the manual club sport shifter if you decide to get it because it's a pretty pricey add-on after all expect to get a really raw clunky and tactile experience from it as close as it can be to a race car i actually had a couple of friends come over to try it out some of them have wheels from the likes of logitech and thrustmaster and they all pretty much agree on everything that i said here so the only question that remains is all of this actually worth it when you draw the line i personally think it's worth the price difference even with the load cell brake mode and club sport manual shifter because you can always reuse them down the line plus i do a lot of manual driving so you could easily sell the csl elite base down the road and get yourself the an all bill of sim racing setups a direct drive motor wheelbase hopefully i'll get to try it out too anyhow the point here was not to prove if this is better than logistics g923 or thrustmasters t300 series because it is but it of course comes with a price so the point that i was trying to make here is that we get to have choices alongside of having distinct differences between those same choices so your end decision is form a bit more easily based on your needs and what you feel is the right value for you that's it for this time for me thank you once again for watching please take a second to toss me a thumbs up if you enjoyed my content that really helps a lot and if you like what you saw feel free to subscribe and if you already are be sure to press that notification bell down below so you don't miss out on a new video and until then catch you later guys and now i'm going to drive some more a lot more

Channel: TekTick

Views: 222,461

Rating: 4.8837771 out of 5

Keywords: TekTick, fanatec csl elite vs g923, csl elite vs g923, csl elite vs t300, best sim racing wheel, iracing wheel, assetto corza wheel, assetto corsa wheel, forza 4 wheel, project cars 3 wheel, fanatec csl elite, csl elite bundle, fanatec csl elite vs t300, belt driven wheel, best wheel for ps4, best wheel for ps5, best wheel for xbox series x, g923 vs csl elite

Id: lQfXJp5oZq8

Length: 12min 13sec (733 seconds)

Published: Fri Oct 30 2020