Fanatec DROPS A BOMB on the Direct Drive Sim Racing Market!

hey guys will here so believe it or not it's been two years since we first set eyes upon the fnatic CSL DD now back at the time that we originally reviewed this product it had a bit of a monopoly on the entry level direct drive space it really wasn't anything like it available and uh things have changed a lot since we did that review we've seen the explosion of Mazda Racing for one and uh we're definitely a lot more spoiled with abundance of choice now than we were when we originally checked out this product now fnatic have just dropped a bit of a bomb on the scene in the last week or so they've dropped the price of their csldd ready to race uh bundle for PC by a massive 150 US Dollars which gets you the wheelbase a wheel and pedal so pretty much everything you need to get up and Racing for under under 400 us which is pretty darn amazing so I thought today we would take a bit of a dive back into this give you a look at exactly what you're getting for the money compared to some other Alternatives at around this kind of price point too but by the end of today's video you'll have a good understanding of the options available in the entry level direct drive space and which one will hopefully suit your needs and budget best so let's get started okay so as always before we kick off here a couple of bits of important information for you to get the full context before we dive into today's video so firstly big thank you to all the manufacturers who have sent us their gear for us to check out in today's video all the gear that you're going to be seeing in today's video has been sent to us under the same conditions from their respective manufacturers so we can check them out and make content for you guys so big thank you to them for that now if you do decide you want to pick up any of the gear that you see in today's video regardless of the brand we've got some affiliate links down in the description below there's an awesome way of helping support our work here at boosted media at no additional cost to you guys if you find what we do here beneficial if not that is absolutely fine too just jump on the manufacturer's website and you can pick them up as well now one important difference just while we're on that subject fnatic do only sell direct to public so you do have to go through their website to purchase their gear I will be comparing quite a bit today against some mozzer Hardware so it's important that you guys know they do sell directly to the customer they also have a well-established reseller partner Network now too so we do have a few links to some of our preferred Partners down in the description for you guys but I would definitely recommend if you are looking at mozzer gear shop around make sure you're getting the best deal keep in mind that shipping and taxes can be very very significant in the purchase price so just make sure you're shopping around and getting yourself the absolute best deal possible but with all that said let's dive in now and talk about all this gear starting with the pricing of this new CSL DD bundle so if you follow the links in the description to the fanatec website you'll see there's actually a page there which is dedicated to a a variety of different ready to race bundles that they've put together throughout a variety of different price points so there should be there's something there to suit most people's needs and budget but you'll notice that it's quite uh it's quite a jump in price from the bundle that we're going to be looking at today to the next bundle up and the reason for that is that the steering wheel that they're including with this the P1 V2 wheel is quite a bit cheaper than the other Wheels which they have available so we'll be taking a more detailed look at the quality of this wheel today and comparing it with some other alternatives for you guys too but to get you started here the price for the base the wheel and the CSL pedals comes in at 399.95 US dollars or Euro or if you're in Australia 639 and 90 cents now they do also have an option here for the same package but with the boost kit which boosts the output of the motor from five newton meters up to 8 Newton meters and if you watch our full review of the csldd you'll see that it is quite a significant jump up whether or not it's worth the price to you is a pretty subjective thing but we'll talk about that a little bit more in detail today too but if you do decide you want that eight Newton meter version just remembering that it is only a power supply that you're purchasing it's not any different in terms of the mechanical Hardware of the wheelbase itself so you can decide to purchase that a little bit later on but if you decide to purchase it at the same time you're going to save yourself about 50 US dollars off the purchase price there as well so the 8 Newton meter version of this package comes in at 499.95 Euro or US dollars or 814.80 if you're in Australia so that pricing is extremely aggressive in fact it places it as the cheapest direct drive wheelbase available on the market today at least that I could find from a major manufacturer at least if you compare to the moza R5 bundle for example which also comes with a wheel and pedals that comes in at where is it on my sheet here 529 US dollars or Euro or 879 Australian dollars so more than 100 U.S more expensive now one important thing to note there just with the comparison between the two before we unpack it in more detail is that the R5 bundle does actually come with a table clamp as well so if you are looking at getting all these gears set up just at your at your gaming PC and you don't have a cockpit or anything like that then that is definitely one point of consideration if you're going to buy a table clamp for the csldd there is one available through fnatic and that is going to set you back an additional 29.95 US dollars or Euro or 49.90 if you're in Australia so just factor that in as well but otherwise on paper at least this bundle is actually very similar to the Mazda R5 which when we reviewed that we said was absolutely incredible value for money so when you consider that you're getting this for significantly cheaper than even that is it is a very very very aggressive price and honestly I was amazed is because you know when you consider the fact that fanatec have been out of stock perpetually for the CSL DD for so long now obviously they're not having any trouble selling these things when they are in stock so yeah I really didn't expect them to be dropping the price of this thing anytime soon so really really good deal straight out of the gate there in my opinion in fact the pricing actually places this pretty much bang on right between something like a Logitech g923 which uh you know we've done reviews of this and uh is nowhere near the experience that something like this is and something like the Mazda R5 so yeah very very good value for money now another important consideration there too is of course customer support So if you're buying into the fnatic ecosystem you will be dealing with fnatic specifically for any customer support that means you have to go through their website and their own support channels if you're buying moza you're going to be going through whichever reseller you happen to buy that through so obviously I can't tell you what your experience is going to be like with every single reseller out there I can tell you that you should have a good experience with any of our affiliate partners that are linked down in the description but yeah just make sure that you factoring customer support here as well but let's unpack it a little bit more now show you exactly what you're getting for the money what the quality is like of the wheel in particular because this isn't something that we've had a look at before and then do some more direct comparisons with the Mazda R5 and the g923 as well so let's start off here by taking a more detailed look at the steering wheel offerings this is a good time to talk about compatibility too and how it relates to each steering wheel now with moza it's very straightforward simply because none of the mozzer gear is console compatible at all without a third-party adapter with fnatic this particular bundle is only PC compatible now it's important that you understand the CSL DD wheelbase itself is actually Xbox compatible compatibility for Xbox though comes from a security chip inside the steering wheel itself so depending on what steering wheel you buy in the phonetic ecosystem will determine whether or not you can use the setup with a Xbox so as it stands now this bundle will only work with PC if you do then buy an Xbox compatible wheel down the line that will mean that that entire setup does then become Xbox compatible now in terms of PlayStation compatibility there actually comes from security chip inside the wheelbase so regardless of what steering wheel you buy for this particular setup it's never going to work on Playstation you would actually need to go across to the GTD Pro for compatibility then so PC only compatibility on both sides of the table here but with the fnatic ecosystem you do have that option of buying an Xbox wheel and unlocking that Xbox compatibility with this particular bundle so just to quickly compare with the Logitech g923 as well there are two different versions of this particular wheel one is PC and Xbox compatible the other as we have here is PC and Playstation compatible so if you're ordering one of these guys just make sure you're getting the right version for your particular usage case and it's as simple as that so onto the wheels themselves now starting with the p1v2 Wheel from fnatic so this is a 300 millimeter diameter wheel and as you can see it is perfectly round here now the thing I really like about this wheel straight out of the gate is the fact that it is such a fantastic all-rounder so regardless of whether you're drifting rallying driving GT style cars formula style cars or whatever if you can only afford one wheel then this is going to have you covered for pretty much everything so a similar kind of design philosophy to what we get with the Mazda R5 bundle and the Logitech g923 as well but you can see both of these wheels have that flat bottom or D shape which does make them a little bit awkward for drifting in particular anything where you want to have the wheel be able to slip through your hands and grip it in any position there's always going to be a little bit more tricky with a wheel that's d-shaped so I'm a big fan of this wheel straight out of the gate as an all-rounder another thing that I like here as well is that the buttons are relatively ergonomically placed too so if we hold it like this you can see I can actually reach at least the first two buttons without really kind of taking my hand off the general driving position now in terms of buttons we've got a single five-way switch here which gives us left right up down and push button functionality that's really great for navigating through menus as well as a tuning menu that we'll talk about in just a minute we've got 13 push buttons on the face of the wheel here as well those have all got a relatively good feel to them relatively clicky and uh feel pretty much the same honestly between the mozzo wheel and The Fanatic wheel now one of those buttons is for bringing up the tuning menu what that allows you to do is get a little display here at the top of the wheel which allows you to adjust settings for your force feedback brake response all those kinds of things on the fly directly from the wheel and that's always been one of the big advantages of the fnatic ecosystem at least in my opinion just gives you the ability to make those on the Fly changes without having to alt Tab out of the game and you can also choose between a selection of different presets here as well as Auto setup too so if you've got different presets for different Sim titles different cars quickly change between them at the start of the race if you've forgotten without having to alt Tab and potentially miss the start of the race now we do have the ability to make some changes on the mozo ecosystem now but you don't have any sort of visual reference on the wheel so it is all kind of you have to push a button combination and kind of just guess whether it worked or not so definitely an area of strength I would say on the phonetic ecosystem over pretty much any other ecosystem that exists at least at this point in time so in terms of the overall build quality here I would say the mozzle wheel is of a higher construction quality than what we have with the P1 wheel remembering again that the Mazda R5 bundle is more expensive than the csld dp1 bundle is so to start off with we've got a rubberized plastic coating here throughout the entire surface of the wheel so no pleather or anything like that I think the uh I think the g923 is actually genuine leather my old G27 still smelt like leather when I opened up the cupboard after about 10 years of usage so I think it is genuine leather but this definitely feels cheaper in the hands even than the Logitech wheel does but in saying that it certainly doesn't feel bad the rubberized coating is quite nice it's not horrible and sticky and tacky so it's not going to pick up dead skin cells and dirt and debris like some very expensive wheels that use rubberized Coatings do so it's a good overall finish I would say there's no significant Flex in the wheel Rim itself either which is really good that can't be said for the quick release though which we'll talk about in just a second but looking at the wheel you can see it's got this kind of faux carbon fiber finish on the front here which is actually pretty genuine looking but it isn't genuine carbon fiber it is just a kind of etched plastic finish and all throughout here the entire wheel is plastic in construction whereas if we look at the Mazda es Wheel by comparison we've got the faux leather wrapping around with the nice stitching it is a plastic shroud on the back but the wheel Rim itself as you can see through here is a brushed anodized aluminum so this definitely does have a higher quality overall feel the shifters I would say are actually a little bit nicer on the P1 wheel in fact on the es wheel they are quite clicky it just kind of feels like you're activating a contact switch which is pretty much the only resistance that's being provided whereas with the P1 wheel it's got a much more Snappy kind of feel to it it is still plasticky overall and it's certainly not a high quality feeling shifter but I'd say overall in terms of the quality of the shift is pretty similar to what we have on the Logitech g923 by default so look overall I'd say between the two wheels uh I think that this is probably the better all-rounder wheel when you're considering the fact that this is a lot easier to use for drifting and rally style driving but there are a couple of other really important advantages to the mozzle wheel so first and foremost the quality of the quick release here now one of the things that I was absolutely thrilled about with the cheaper R5 bundle and the cheaper es wheel is that they're still using a high quality aluminum quick release now you guys have heard me say a million times by now in these videos that the NRG style quick release that mozzar Sim magic and a couple other manufacturers are now using is in my opinion the best OEM at least quick release that we have on the market available today and this is far far better than even the club sport qr1 in the fnatic ecosystem now fnatic have been talking about their qr2 quick release which should solve a lot of the issues that we'll talk about in just a minute it with their quick release mechanism but at this point at least in time we haven't actually seen any more news on that we don't know exactly when it's going to be releasing so we can't really use that as a point of advantage of the fnatic ecosystem but we definitely will be covering that in detail as soon as we can possibly get our hands on it to let you know what kind of difference that makes but the complaints with the fanatic quick releases are when you look at the cheaper Wheels like the P1 V2 it's using their simplified quick release now this slots onto the stem of the wheelbase and then locks into position by rotating the collar like so and unfortunately these quick releases do still have quite a lot of flex in them so if you rock the Wheel from side to side you can notice quite a bit of flex there now a lot of people say they don't notice it when they're driving but look in all honesty at least with the simplified quick release it's definitely something that I do notice if you step up to the more expensive metal quick release like the one that we have here on the McLaren's GT3 wheel and this is an optional upgrade for this wheel we'll talk about this well in more detail a little later too that does away with a lot of the flex that you get inherent in the plastic design on the simplified quick release but unfortunately because the Machining tolerances between the sleeve here and the stem on the motor side are a little bit looser than they need to be you do end up with a little bit of play there and it can end up with some clunking and horrible metallic sounds when you're driving and that's been a complaint that people have had about the fanatic quick releases for quite some time now myself included and that goes for their entry level stuff all the way through to their most expensive stuff too so definitely the quick release is a big Advantage at least at the moment to the Mozza ecosystem over any of the fnatic wheels that are available at this point in time hopefully the qr2 quick release will improve that significantly the other big advantage that you have here with the mozzle wheel as well is that there are wheel mods available now you can see here how the button plate is kind of cut out and that allows you to just undo the six bolts around the top here and you can actually swap out for different style wheels without having to change the quick release and the button plate and all those bits and pieces the shifters remain this same and everything now the thing I really like about this is it gives you a really simple and cheap way to switch between different driving Styles it is a little bit cumbersome to take the bolts out it's not something you're going to want to do every five minutes but these wheel mods are only 39 US dollars or Euros or 65 Australian dollars so obviously that is a lot cheaper than having to go out and buy a formula style wheel in addition to this wheel for the fnatic ecosystem now the cheapest alternative that fnatic have to a wheel of this style is actually their McLaren GT3 where we're looking at just a moment ago now this is in my opinion one of the best value for money Sim racing wheels available on the market but it does still cost 199.95 US dollars or Euro or 349.99 Australian dollars which is a lot more expensive than uh just switching this over with a 30 or 50 mod like this guy is so that is one very clever design choice in the Mozza ecosystem at least in my opinion now the other thing you'll notice here as well is that the diameter of the mozzle wheel is significantly smaller than the p1v2 as well so 280 millimeter over here compared to the 300 millimeter that we get with the fnatic P1 so what this means is for formula style driving they can be a little bit easier to drive with a smaller diameter wheel simply because everything feels a little bit more responsive and a little bit more Twitchy but if you're driving something like a GT4 GT3 or anything bigger than that then this kind of diameter starts to become a little bit too small and something like the 300 mil that we have here with the P1 becomes a little bit more suitable so when you break it down the difference is the larger the diameter and the lower the rotating mass of the wheel these wheels are both pretty similar in weight actually but the larger the diameter the more dampening effect it has and the more leverage you have against the force feedback overall so it makes the force feedback feel weaker than it does with a smaller wheel but it also dampens it down a little bit too so it makes it feel a little bit less Snappy and again depending on the type of car you're driving will determine whether that's something that's desirable or not but for me personally I find that 300 millimeters is is kind of the best for an all-round wheel for something that you're going to be using for everything from formula style driving all the way through to rally and drift for example whereas I definitely wouldn't want to be drifting or rallying on a wheel that's only 280 millimeters so that is definitely a consideration there there are a couple other wheel mods available for the es will too which we don't unfortunately have here I think there's one that's the 320 millimeter diameter but definitely check their website for all the details on those but overall if it comes down to just having one wheel that you're going to use for everything then I do think that the P1 V2 is probably the better option overall so before we move on to the wheelbase is one other important consideration here too is the wider ecosystems available so with the phonetic ecosystem you have a huge selection of Wheels all the way through from something like the McLaren GT3 wheel which we already talked about to something like the 1500 US dollar M4 GT3 wheel which you can see is absolutely beautiful carbon fiber finish beautiful quality shifters high quality buttons and all those things so there's a huge variety of different Wheels within the phonetic ecosystem everywhere between something like that and something like this and we have a complete guide actually two videos dedicated to this as well as a article on our website so I'll drop some links below for that as well everything far from formula style all the way through GT3 style even rally cars and NASCARs they've got pretty much everything a lot more limited in the mozzo ecosystem at the moment but it is something that they're rapidly expanding they actually have a new formula style wheel coming in at a cheaper price point than their current GS will which we're going to be reviewing very soon here on the channel too so definitely keep an eye out for that one but at the moment fnatic do win in terms of the overall ecosystem and the abundance of choice available when it comes to Wheels but anyway let's put the wheels aside now and move across into comparing the wheelbases so this is going to be a lot quicker than looking at the wheels was because it's pretty simple to unpack here so with the Logitech which is the cheapest of the bunch here although not a whole lot cheaper it's got to be said than this new bundle from fnatic you've got a cog driven wheelbase here now there's a couple of very very big disadvantage or three major disadvantages here when it comes to a cog driven system like the one we have here the first one is that this is extremely noisy anybody that's used a cog driven Logitech wheelbase would know that these things Rattle and uh they're Extremely Loud to the point where often you can't race if there's somebody trying to study or sleep in a room next door to you now if you compare that with pretty much any direct drive wheelbase whether it's moza Fanatics and Magic anything they're all pretty much silent in their operation you get a little bit of magnetic resonance sometimes but certainly not anything that's going to be distracting or annoying to anybody else anywhere near you so that is one very very big consideration with the g923 also we're limited to about two and a half newton meters of pig talk whereas both of these are five newton meters so twice the strength there up to more than three times the strength if you end up getting the Boost pack for the CSL DD so that is worth considering too but really the biggest difference in terms of the actual Driving Experience is just the level of detail that you're getting with direct drive I can't overstate enough just how much difference this makes overall now that's not to say that you can't drive quick playing consistently with something like a cog driven wheelbase but the huge difference here is just the level of granular detail that you get with direct drive as opposed to Cog driven so with direct drive if you're not aware it's essentially exactly as it's described so you've got a motor which is directly connected to the shaft which the steering wheel is then connected to so there's no gear lash there's no pulleys or belts or anything like that which you can add any dampening effect literally what the motor is doing is exactly what you feel through your hands now in the early days of direct drive that wasn't necessarily always advantageous because there was quite a bit of robotic feel that would come through and even with the csldd with our initial testing it wasn't quite as smooth as we would have hoped that it would have been they have thankfully smoothened things up a lot in the time since we did the initial review but if you compare both of these guys to something like your g923 they're both going to feel a heck of a lot smoother overall they're going to give you a lot more detail and what that translates to in the real world in time in terms of actually driving quickly and consistently and this is something that I see a lot of people comment on when they move across the direct drive is just the ability to catch those quick little slides in the car A lot of people are very very quick with the g923 but as soon as the car gets out of shape or as soon as something happens that throws them a little bit out of control they struggle to catch that slide again whereas with direct drive Everything feels that little bit more instinctive so that's the big differences there and look I mean obviously if if all you can afford is something like the g923 and it gets you up and racing then absolutely go out and buy one so yeah there's absolutely nothing wrong with the g923 but the experience is going to be Far and Away Superior with either one of these two guys so let's move this guy out of the way now and talk about the differences between these two a little bit more now straight away on the table here you can see the form factor and footprint of the R5 is significantly smaller than what we have with the CSL DD again you can check out our detailed reviews of both of these for the dimensions and comparisons weights and things like that but that is significant to a lot of people depending on how you have your rig set up you might want to have the monitor really up close behind the wheelbase so you might want to have something that's really low profile that doesn't stick up high behind the wheel so both of these are pretty small but you do have a little bit more flexibility with mounting on the R5 if that's something that's important to you while we're on the subject of mounting you do have a little bit more versatility with the phonetic wheelbase you can see there's actually some t-slots very cleverly disguised within the heatsink fins here on both sides of the wheelbase so you can side mount or bottom mount with t-nuts which come provided for the bottom channels here with the mozzle wheelbase you can see there aren't any mounting channels on the sides and because it's not a flat profile on the edge it does make it quite difficult to side mount you're left with just the four mounting holes on the bottom of the R5 to get that guy mounted now I don't think that that's going to be a huge a huge determining factor in an overall purchasing decision but just something that I do think that you guys need to be aware of and then in terms of overall build quality look there's not a whole lot of difference between the two of them both of them have a plastic cover on the back here the Mazda one does have a metal cover on the front as we already talked about the quick release on the Mozza ecosystem is far superior to the qr1 from the fnatic ecosystem as we mentioned there is the qr2 coming very soon so we'll definitely be commenting on that as soon as we possibly can but look in terms of the actual Driving Experience between the two of them there's not a whole lot in it both of them are pretty smooth these days I would say initially the R5 was maybe just a touch smoother than what you have with the phonetic CSL DD but the later firmware updates on this have smoothened it up quite a bit more now and I'd say it's at the point now where it's pretty much indistinguishable between the two of them under normal kind of driving conditions if you're sitting there in the pits and you're really kind of paying attention and going oh yeah I can feel this I can feel that maybe you'll feel a difference but when you're actually out there driving on the track there's very very little between them just do keep in mind that of course the csldd does have the ability to upgrade to eight newton meters of torque with that boost pack that we talked about before whereas the R5 is limited to five newton meters there's no way to boost that up beyond that unless you upgrade the wheelbase to something like the R9 which is significantly more expensive the last thing I just want to quickly touch on here with the Driving Experience too is just some of the differences between the software now again we do have detailed videos taking you through the entire software suite for both of these products I'm only going to just kind of skim over this now moza have honestly really impressed me with how quickly they've been evolving their software over time one of the frustrations that I do have with Moz is still to this day though is that there are a lot of quirky little glitches that happen from time to time to give you the example just the other day I upgraded the firmware on my R9 wheelbase and suddenly found that the shifters on my GS wheel wouldn't work so I had to go and find a different wheel that did work I updated the firmware on the wheel too and it didn't fix it so you know just finding little glitches like that that happened from time to time they seem to be updating their software pretty much weekly at this point and has been the case for you know the pretty much the entire time that we've been that we've been looking at mozzle products so yeah it does feel a little bit Rough and Ready sometimes around the edges I think that sometimes they might just need to slow down a little bit and just focus more on the quality of the output rather than just expanding the ecosystem so quickly but look having said that it has evolved greatly over time so I would still say that in the software Department though fnatic does still have that slight Advantage just in terms of ease of use so integration in a variety of different Sim racing titles too I do find that one of the big advantages with the fnatic ecosystem is that force feedback does feel quite consistent between the different Sim racing titles whereas with moza they do still have a little way to go there with that consistency fnatic have also made a lot of improvements to their profile system recently too so if you download their fanalab software you can actually have profiles automatically load for different cars and different Sims to get you up and running and give you a good overall driving feel so ease of use is a little bit better with the phonetic ecosystem too remembering again we also do have that tuning menu that allows you to make those on their fly adjustments too which is a little bit cleaner once again on the phonetic ecosystems the other thing I would comment on there as well is that moza does just need a little bit more work in terms of the filtering that's necessary to get a smooth overall feel uh you know just filtering out things like oscillation in the wheel and details like that is a little bit more tricky on the Moses stuff and what that ultimately means is the more filtering you're running the more you're dampening down that overall force feedback intensity and you know just feeling those granular details in the force feedback so I find that you get a little bit more of a direct feel with the phonetic ecosystem than you do with moza unless you make the sacrifice of a little bit of a robotic feel with the mozzle wheel but I am really nitpicking here I think ultimately you're going to be happy with either one of these just again keeping in mind that the quick release on the mozzer ecosystem is superior to the qr1 on the fnatic ecosystem so you know if you're worried about flexing the wheel and things like that things feeling really solid on the rig then at least at this point in time the mozzer is probably the better choice for you so on to pedals now so fnatic has their CSL pedals at this price point included in the bundle moza includes their uh SRP light pedals with the R5 bundle now you don't have to buy the bundle you can buy the R5 base separately and choose different pedals if you wish to do so again check out our mozzer buyers guide linked down in the description for all of the details on this but look I mean straight away on the table here I don't need to tell you guys you can see that they're pretty much identical in terms of their overall design both of them allow you to move the pedals in and out from side to side to get the spacing exactly right both of them do have a clutch pedal option available too if you wish to purchase that basically with the fnatic one you can either buy a dedicated clutch pedal or by the load cell brake upgrade which then turns the existing brake into the clutch pedals you just remove the little foam insert out of the back and you're good to go now I should also mention here the pedals that come bundled with the g923 are actually a significant improvement over what was included with their previous models I know they look identical but they did actually do quite a bit of work to the feel of the brake pedal and it does have a more Progressive and uh more defined kind of pressure point in the brake pedal now so I actually do prefer the g923 brake pedal over the SRP light pedals and I'd say it's probably about on par with the CSL pedal the default configuration if you don't go up to load cell so if I quickly spin the pedal around here you can see in the case of a throttle pedal it's just a basic push in you can see there's a little spring in the back there and there's also a hall effect sensor there as well so there's no mechanical moving Parts involved in the electronics that could wear out and cause issues over time which is a great thing if you look over at the brake pedal you can see same design but we have this assembly here with a little foam insert and that just adds a little bit of resistance here to the brake pedal to give you that more Progressive feel now the important thing when it comes to braking is to have that clearly defined pressure point where you can push to that threshold consistently to give you your threshold braking and then modulate around it and taper off for your for your Trail braking so that is very important now the thing that I really didn't like about the SRP light pedals is they didn't have anything like that by default so what we have here is their Performance Kit upgrade that comes in at 29 Euro or US dollars or 33.90 and I would say this is an absolutely essential upgrade for these pedals what that does is give you that again clearly defined pressure point that you can modulate around otherwise literally it feels exactly the same as the throttle pedal does and the problem there being that you just don't have any way to establish proper pressure-based or force-based muscle memory it's purely just going to be down to the position of your ankle so you will find that you'll be able to drive a lot more quickly and consistently with this upgrade one thing to just keep in mind there though is that with that upgrade the pedals do tend to slide around on the floor if you don't have a solid mount for them so with both of these pedals they're actually all three of these sets of pedals they are designed to be able to mount on the carpet or just sitting on a tile floor and there's enough resistance either they don't slide around underneath you you will want to make sure that your chair is not going to slide back every single time you press the brake pedal of course but if you do upgrade to this guy here all the load cell in the phonetic ecosystem then you will want to have some way to mount your chair and make sure the pedals aren't sliding across the floor even just having them hard up against the wall or having a block of wood behind them and then up against the wall so they don't move around is generally sufficient so I'm not saying you need to rush out and buy a cockpit or anything like that but just keep in mind it's not going to be quite as plug and play as what you get with the uh with the default setup so when you break it down between the two sets of pedals we have on the table here I'd say there probably isn't any significant reason to sway me in either direction to either ecosystem I'd say it's going to be more down to the driving experiences the wheelbases and the wheels themselves one thing I will say though is that I'm not a big fan of any of the current mozzer Sim racing pedals that are available on the market even up to the CRP pedals which are very expensive I think for what they are they do look really nice but they're very complex to adjust and they just don't have the same level of overall quality and feel in terms of the driving experience as some of the fanatic options that are available my uh actual pick for the best value Sim racing pedals on the market at this point in time is the fnatic CSL Elite V2 pedals I just think they're absolutely fantastic and again full review Linked In the description down below which will take you through all the reasons why I'm such a big fan of those pedals so if you're keeping if you're keeping upgrades in money you're wanting to stay within the same ecosystem then maybe that is a reason to stick with fnatic you do just have a little bit more of a clear upgrade path there with better value when it comes to pedals again remembering as well if you are wanting to run on console with a with an Xbox compatible wheel later on with the phonetic ecosystem you will need to have the pedals connected through the wheelbase now of course if you're running on PC that doesn't really matter because you can just plug any pedal set you want in via USB but if you are wanting to run the fnatic ecosystem with an Xbox compatible wheel on an Xbox then you will be limited to only using fnatic pedals and there's just simply better options at a cheaper price available there than what we have with moza again remembering that moza doesn't work with console without a third-party adapter anyway so you're kind of stuck there but yeah if you're on PC then not really a significant swaying determining factor in either direction when it comes to the pedals so how do we best summarize all this I think I think there are strengths and weaknesses on both sides of the table here I think when you consider the fact that this bundle is this bundle from fnatic is significantly cheaper than the R5 bundle is from moza and the strength of their ecosystem overall the quality of the integration across different Sim racing titles as well is that little bit better with fnatic than it is with mozzer although moza are catching up very quickly but then you also have the drawback of the uh the quick release on the phonetic ecosystem of just being nowhere near as good as it is on the mozzer I think you know for me I probably would go with the fnatic over the Mozza ecosystem at this price point simply because it is cheaper the wobble and the flex in the quick release isn't something that I tend to really notice when I'm driving unless I'm specifically paying attention to it it might be something that absolutely drives you insane and again if you're if you're worried about that I would definitely recommend going and have a look at our more detailed full reviews of both of these ecosystems that will give you a much better picture overall of what you're in for if you decide to go down either one of these paths but I think at the price point it is very difficult to go past this fanatic bundle as an entry to direct drive Sim racing at this point in time I can is absolutely fantastic value for money and when you consider just how close it is in price to something like a g923 which you know while the pedals are you know pretty same same the quality of the overall Driving Experience and what direct drive specifically brings to the table in regards to that is undeniable and when you consider the number of different wheels and upgrade parts that we have available there too I think that this is an absolutely fantastic value proposition for anybody looking to step up into SIM racing but I also think if you were to go down the path of the Mazda R5 bundle you'd be absolutely happy but if one of my mates was to ring me up and say hey Will should I get this or should I get this I've got to say I would go with this so I really hope that today's video has helped you out guys if you do want to pick up any of the gear you've seen in today's video there will be links down in the description as well as links to our full reviews as we've referenced throughout today's video but I really hope that this has helped you out leave a thumbs up if it has and I will see you again very soon bye

Channel: Boosted Media

Views: 414,234

Keywords: fanatec, csl dd, P1 bundle, fanatec bundle, cheapest Direct Drive wheel, cheapest fanatec, fanatec vs logitech, fanatec vs moza, Moza r5 vs, moza r5 vs csl dd, boosted media, review, sim racing review

Id: 75nHC3EzZWs

Length: 33min 33sec (2013 seconds)

Published: Mon Jun 19 2023