Going from Logitech G29 to Fanatec CSL Elite - The 'Months Later' Review

it's been about four months since i waved goodbye to my logitech g-series wheels and finally upgraded to the mid-range fanatec csl elite wheelbase in that time i've really been active on my favorite sims such as eye racing and dabbled in some new ones such as rfactor 2 and acc those 4 months have plenty of time to really get my head around the new dimension of force feedback that comes with such an upgrade so months down the road here are some fully cooked forts on the leap from the g29 to the csl elite if you're short on time here are the headlines yes it's a massive step up from a g29 yes it is good enough to justify the cost difference yes it will help you find speed faster yep it works fine on a desk and yes i am completely happy with mine and we'll talk about a load of things in this video but that's pretty much it in a nutshell at least my g29 cost me 200 quid my fanatic configuration with my optional upgrades cost me more than that but i'm a mega tight one and i hate getting bad value for money so hitting the checkout button for me was a leap of faith i didn't know anybody else who had a fanatic set up i just had to trust that it would be as good as i hoped i don't want it to be a leap of faith for you though i want to paint a picture of what it's like so you can better inform yourself as to whether sim racing is becoming a big enough passion to step up into the enthusiasts world quick note i've got a fanatek affiliate link that takes you to the fanatex store in the description below please use that if you do have there and that will help me out mega and thank you very much to those who have already done so i really appreciate it i want to start with what i think about the experience as a whole so going from a g29 to a fanatex csl elite is a massive jump let's just make that clear the csl is in another class and that's what makes it such an enticing step up for g29 owners at the moment once they can convince themselves that the cost will be justified if you're anything like me then when you upgrade something you want to know it's an upgrade about 15 years ago i swapped my sony earbuds for a set of sennheiser hd headphones and all of a sudden everything on my music catalog had twice as much character and i've relived that feeling all over again with a csl elite the agility and strength of a belt drive wheel over the g29s gear drive means everything has so much more vibrancy there's no better way to demonstrate what i mean by that by using the force feedback test button within the settings which kind of needs a warning label on it because i'm sure it's been responsible for more than a few heart attacks from people curiously pressing the button without a clue what it actually does just watch and see for yourself what it's all about it's thumb snappingly powerful and considering that the csl elite is the entry-level phanetech ball drive wheel when you first try it after coming from a g29 you might be thinking to yourself if this is the entry level wheelbase then why on earth would you need any more power than this but obviously you grow into it you start to use it but if you thought that it's somehow going to be weak because it's the lowest level fanatic wheel you're gonna be pleasantly surprised it's got enough torque for anybody so let's try and describe the actual force feedback a little bit more now that i've gushed about how much more enjoyable and flavorful it is over at g29 i need to try and explain why so let's imagine you're about to hit this chicane at monza full aggression your inside front wheel hits the curb and the front end bounces if you do this on a g29 you will feel a little jolt but if you grip the wheel with any kind of force you can pretty much just ignore the forces that the sim is trying to communicate to you through the wheel on a csl elite this isn't the case you absolutely will be receiving the message loud and clear with a big deflection on the steering wheel which you won't be resisting the speed at which the force feedback can change direction is also much more rapid compared to a g29 which means that as you drive on tracks with uneven surfaces such as sebring you're practically tasting the contours in the road that just weren't really there before when you initially make the upgrade to the csl elite you may find yourself thinking oh god i feel like i'm barely in control of this gt3 car that i was absolutely flying in yesterday how is getting chucked around by kerbs bumps and undulations an advantage well it's something you get over really quickly and you start to take signals and cues from what the car's telling you underneath those tyres if you're braking hard but you detect that the road surface is becoming less favorable you'll instinctively ease off to prevent a lockup or if you've run slightly wide on a corner exit and you can easily tell that your outside wheels are not yet off a danger zone you're more likely to be able to control the throttle according to what your car's telling you i also find that the differences in the force feedback languages between iracing assetto corsa and rfactor 2 are much more obvious and varied now and certainly in the case of our factor 2 it's easy to understand why it's held up as the best sim for force feedback because i'm feeling a great amount more of what it was designed to do the first time i strayed onto a painted curb on our factory two and felt the outside tire slide across a smooth surface as it locked up i was legitimately impressed with how authentic it felt it's all with a belt drive that delivers force sufficient to really work your arms and lift the heart rate to put you in that zone where you start to trick your mind into being immersed since upgrading to the fanatex csl elite i can say that the rate of my mistakes has dropped quite a lot on the g29 there were moments where you were certain that you nailed a corner but you still found yourself having an incident or losing the back end you always kind of felt like you were on the edge but the edge was just about a little bit fuzzy so it was hard sometimes to know if you were on the edge or over it on my old wheel i'd have to put my spins down to running a bit too close to the limit and trying too hard and telling myself that if i want to make it the full race distance i need to just back off just a little bit now i can confidently say that this uncertainty is just no longer there with the csl if i make a mistake i can only really blame myself and i can tell what i did wrong straight away if i push too much and reach the limit of a car it's my fault if i spin because as always that split second where the wheel is telling you you're about to have an incident and where the instinct should take over and rescue a larry corner if you sometimes feel like a spin or an accident just comes out of nowhere then this is sort of what i'm talking about i've lost count of the times now where i'm convinced that a spin or an accident was avoided only by virtue of better force feedback so quite frankly i'm surprised that i did as well as i did on my old g29 this is something that i've heard many times before and at the time you don't give it much thought but haven't experienced the difference first hand i can totally vouch for it this boost to consistency is absolutely real and not a myth so if you find yourself racing amongst people that are a similar pace to you but make less mistakes chances are you're at the limit of what your g29 can do for you and it's probably time to move on so let's say you're feeling like it's time to make the move away from the g29 there's a fanatic csl elite yeah but what about the fanatec club sport wheelbase or csw as it's known what is that all about i've had a try of a csw and i would say that it is noticeably smoother and a little bit stronger but by no means does it render a csl elite redundant at all simply put if you have got the money for a csw then go for it it's capable of stronger output it's a bit smoother because of the v-rib belts and probably a little bit more durable and resilient than the csl because it's got two motors rather than the one but there's not really a big gap in terms of what you actually feel in your hands when you're driving between the two models certainly nothing like the gap between a g29 to a csl i also want to revisit a point i made in my prior video but if you are using a g29 and want to go faster a wheel upgrade won't be the silver bullet but i want to add a bit of dimension to that viewpoint because i've reflected on it since then and it's not really correct if you spend long enough with an entry level wheel like the g29 then you will eventually become fast you'll be able to reach 99 of your maximum ability with a g29 but you won't be having as much fun doing it and that remaining one percent will probably always be out of reach i'm also quite sure now but it would take a lot less time to get to that same level of practice with a better wheel if you're just starting out with simracing i think it would be much easier for newcomers to see eye to eye with everything if you have a csl elite or better to start off with with that said logitech deserves credit for having been so many people's first encounter with racing wheels and i'd be lying if i didn't just use to get on with it and have a great time in all my sims with liver speed dirt rally the lot and believe me there are some guys in eastern europe who could whoop a lot of you and live for speed using just a mouse and keyboard and let's face facts as well a fanatic wheel and pedal setup is going to cost at least two times what the g29 would have cost you depending on what you add to it and it's expensive for some demographics and exchange rates too so it is more of a fork in the road than a step up the ladder because of it but it's not the same as comparison between let's say a 20 quid spanner set from a diy shop and a 200 quid set from snap-on where it's basically no different for 99 of stuff unless you really really like spanners the first lap using a csl after using the g29 for all those years was a real oh my god awesome moment and if you're on the brink of spending a lot of money that's exactly what you want to get it's four months on from me and that feeling has not gone away one bit but not so fast because there is one bad bit about fanatek kit i've had no problems with my own equipment but i've got my fingers crossed but it stays that way because whilst every manufacturer out there has to deal with the odd defect or dodd fanatec customer service seems to be particularly slumbersome this leads to people running a bigger gauntlet than they need to when things go wrong so in the eu i've heard stories about people having to post their equipment back to germany at their own expense to be repaired and it taken ages and when you're without your sim racing kit that's a painful delay and hard to swallow after paying good money it's because of this irritation factor that people who have issues with their equipment and have to deal with fanatic customer service tend to be so put off that they tell the world about it so just be aware of this before you buy so you don't get wound up too much in the unlikely event that it happens to you the final word on the upgrade from the logitech g29 to the fanatex csl elite is that i'm very very satisfied with mine and i feel like it was well worth the money i'm the kind of person that researches a lot makes sure to get a better value for money option and i hate nothing more than spending a lot of cash and not having my socks blown off well i didn't have that problem the fanatex cslle is a gigantic upgrade from a g29 and i don't feel short changed in any way shape or form when you're trying to decide whether it's time to upgrade it's this sort of feedback from the front that helps out a lot which is why i offer mine if you love sim racing and you've been using a g29 for any length of time you will thank yourself for taking the plunge and making the upgrade to a belt-driven wheel be it a fanatex csl elite or similar it's going to make all your sim racing way more fun boost the immersion factor and ultimately make each hour you spend more fulfilling and it will do it by such a level that it will justify your hard-earned cash and that's it do comment if you got questions because i'll answer them pretty sharpish and leave your own feedback if you've already upgraded because that'll help others visiting this video to do the same if you are going to upgrade use the link in the description to go to the fanatex site and it will help me out so much because fanatic rewards affiliates with every purchase so you'll be helping put money in my pocket without taking anything extra out of yours subscribe to if you haven't and let's push this baby over a thousand subs thanks for sticking with me and i'll see you next time

Channel: Danny Lee

Views: 398,962

Keywords:

Id: fANjfqcFuc0

Length: 12min 28sec (748 seconds)

Published: Wed Aug 26 2020

Reddit Comments

[u/gtchucker86]

That thumbnail made me think you’re gonna mount a G29 rim on a Fanatec base

😐

[u/davidpapp2018]

I don’t think there’s many people who contemplating whether or not they should upgrade from G29 if they love sim racing and they want to do it for years. The obstacle is price or no place aka rig to mount it optimally, at least that what was going on with me and my V3 pedals.

But that’s just how I see things.

I should add, that I enjoy these sort of reviews regardless as I also want to know what to expect and how does it feel, so it wasn’t an offense at all :)