The Fanatec CSL DD Is NOT What You Thought [FULL REVIEW]

[Music] hey there it's not often i get to use the term game changer unironically usually it's appended to some kind of marketing mumbo jumbo for a very middle of the road product that largely does the same things that products like it have done for years in this case however if fanatec met their mark the csl dd is set to potentially revolutionize simracing in much the same way that the advents of direct drive did before it this is because it's taking direct drive technology and bringing it down into the mid-range of the market making it more accessible to all sim racers to those who aren't aware the cso dd is the cheapest direct drive wheelbase ever announced and we just so happen to have a review sample right behind us which we'll be testing over the course of this video we'll begin by unboxing the unit then listing off the tech specs before taking it for a slew of driving tests to find out whether fanatec did actually hit their mark following this i'll of course be testing the csl pedals made specifically to be paired with the csl dd in the following video so make sure you subscribe to not miss that so without further ado because i'm completely excited just want to get straight to it let's check out and unbox this potentially revolutionary bitter kit here we are one csl dd coming right up [Music] as we open up the shipping box we're greeted with a carton not really containing anything by the looks of things just a bit of protection on the top of the box and as we take the box out we see fairly standard fanatec esque packaging a nice white box with the csl dd printed on the front hash the new stan dd very nice guys a little bit of damage there on the corner in transit but nothing catastrophic and we'll see how it looks once we unbox it it's a fairly standard packaging from fanatec you've got the handle up at the top with the three little lips there that lock it into place as we ever so gingerly swing it open to see what's inside got the manual and a bunch of different languages and the standard array of fanatex stickers that they hand out with just about every product that you order free promo is good promo [Music] and it looks like the unit itself is fairly snugly packaged in amongst some foam we very easily take out the foam nice thick cut there to protect the unit not quite as gingerly packaged as the dd1 or the podium series but still more than adequate enough to actually get the unit to use safely [Music] we've got a nice small white box there containing the mounting accessories and the usb cable i know i'm teasing this out interminably but you know this is the big reveal we've got to wait for it we've got to wait for the csl dd and here it comes finally wrapped up in plastic it keeps slipping out of my hands as i try and take it out of the box and here it is the quote-unquote future of affordable direct drive sim racing tada the csl dd in the flesh it's a really nice kind of cute looking bit of kit it's it really is like half of a dd-1 i like the rails on the sides as well it makes it look a little bit more industrial they're of course there for pragmatic reasons so you can mount the unit as you need to but it's really kind of cute isn't it [Music] if this is what we'll be seeing in more mid-range setups i certainly won't complain very sleek understated bit of kit as you can see the power button is right on the front there this time very no bs very stripped down just the the pure basics of what you need to get direct drive force feedback straight to you and moving it along of course this is the optional boost kit we'll be talking more about the boost kit and what it means and what it does and how it feels in the actual driving test and the conclusion after the fact but for now here's how it's packaged it's got its own little white box as you can see the boost kit largely just consists of another power supply unit and a bunch of different plugs for different outlets for different regions in the world as i show you the european one that's completely useless to me here in australia and what i assume is the north american one following it and that's it the csl dd and additional optional boost kit unboxed now let's mount up the unit take a look at it and talk about its tech specs before taking it for some driving tests to see how good this thing actually is here we are in front of our baby little direct drive it's it's kind of cute honestly i won't lie it compared to the larger belt driven bases in this price range traditionally it actually it's really cute compared to the dd-1 as well it's just like half a dd-1 it was a really great april fool's joke that fanatec pulled by the way there for those who know what i'm talking about i'll flash it on the screen quickly but yes this is the csl dd so let's talk about some of the well talking points about it the first thing is once again to reiterate this at the time of recording is set to be by far the cheapest direct drive wheelbase on the entire market the entry level five newton meter version is 349 euro i'll flash up some of the other prices in different regions as well it is upgradable to an eight newton meter version with the boost kit aka just a larger psu which unlocks the true potential of the units so one of the things that we'll be talking about towards the end of this video is the difference between the eight newton meter and the five newton meter operation however the vast majority of the driving tests in this video are going to be taking place with the full eight newton meter version because from everything i can see that was the pure whiteboard design the the actual intention behind this product before they scaled it down for market segmentation reasons the other things worth noting about the csl dd unlike the dd1 the dd2 it's actually passively cooled there's no fan in here that's going to fire up and annoy you so you can leave that job to your computer and your very loud gpu and it's also upgradable with their upcoming quick release 2 system for now it's just got the standard fanatec quick release now uh no no screw on here to bring it back so to any dd1 dd2 users you'd be quite familiar with the screw that you have to bring back trying to compress the rubber that doesn't actually exist anymore so you just kind of bolt this on and i've actually got the fastening screw on here as well just to stop the wheel rattling around because as we know the quick release currently isn't the best part of the fanatec ecosystem and i'm very keen to see them upgraded to the qr2 which this will be fully compatible with this wheelbase also acts as a hub able to connect two fanatex shifters one handbrake and one set of pedals along with that you'll notice that it has this interesting novel rail system so what you get with the csl dd is a set of t-nuts they slot into these rails here and you can adjust them to your heart's content or basically to the point where you need to adjust them in order to mount them to whatever mounting solution that you have on your end while it's a very flexible design and i commend fanatec for the fairly ingenious and elegant nature of setting it up it does tend to be a little bit flimsy and a little bit annoying when you're actually bolting it one last thing i would be beside myself not to mention when you're removing the sticker that comes over the metallic shaft when you first unbox the unit don't do what i did and just go to rip it off do it slowly otherwise you might run into this now while the standard unit will be retailing somewhere around 349 eur and the boost kit version with eight newton meters of torque will be somewhere around about the 499 euro mark it's worth saying that if you get both together as part of the boost kit bundle you will be getting a saving of 1995 eur or as the pricing might vary in your specific region it's very clear that fanatic are trying to entice people to get the full 8 newton meter version for obvious reasons i think there's a pretty decent margin to be had for selling a power supply unit for 150 euro with that being said we're gonna find out whether it's actually going to be worth that investment for you whether that five to eight new meter shift is really all that much of a difference but first of all we're going to try the unit out fully fledged fully unleashed let's say hypothetically you buy it with the full boost kit and you bolt it to a high-end sim rig that's quite uh flex-less let's see what it drives like compared to the dd1 i've of course been a dd1 user for over a year now so i know it implicitly well especially in titles such as acc ac beam and g r factor i mean take your pick really i've been driving with it for many many hours over the last year it's also worth noting for 29.95 eur they will offer you a table clamp kit for this i would say that if you're going to use the base 5 newt meter version the clamp kit may be a viable option for you but if you're going to be using the full boost kit with eight newt meters of torque you probably want to bolt it to something more rigid than your desk i say this to somebody that cares about your belongings and doesn't want to see your precious office desk get dented anyhow enough waffling on about the csl dd that is the the base feature set there's of course a bunch of marketing mumbo jumbo such as the patented flux barrier technology amongst other things but we've really highlighted the main points the rest we're going to find out through very stringent driving tests so let's just get stuck into them and see what this puppy can do so we begin in acc i think acc is the perfect first test for the csl dd for one main reason namely the one complaint that overhangs acc from people on lower or mid-range hardware is that you don't get enough lower forces and you don't get enough detail from its force feedback engine this tends to be a far cry from what the direct drive users say saying that you get plenty of forces it's all in pretty reasonable proportion and overall that acc actually has a fairly decent force feedback engine so for a unit that's a direct drive wheelbase aiming to go down and basically supplant the entire mid-range market i can't think of a better test than acc i mean does it give you the sensation at a way lower price bracket that the higher end users are getting it's pretty much the litmus test for the csl dds let's try it out one thing i can say before we even start driving is that the moment i put the wheel onto this thing and started rotating it around i could tell that it felt smoother there's less cogging than the dd1 now this could mean anything maybe when the force feedback kicks in it won't matter but i've got to say that the simple action of just rotating the wheel is actually better than the dd-1 so let's go on from there we're of course here at the ever famous spa frankesha in mclaren's 720s oh cool all good thought my pedals are malfunctioning but yes the reason i'm here is because there's a lot of nice straights where i can talk to you about how the unit feels followed by a lot of high compression high downforce corner complexes like radeon and rouge we can really feel it load up so let's see we're in store for i'm excited oh it's slightly overshot or source but it's all good all right that's interesting coming from being a dd1 user for i mean over a year now it feels quite different it actually feels like a completely different wheelbase it doesn't feel like it's coming from the heritage of the dd1 and you might ask do you mean that in a good sense or in a bad sense and allow me to not beat around the bush here i'm just gonna say it this is better than the dd1 in case you i thought you misheard me there let me just navigate this complex and tell you that again all right this csl dd for most practical purposes is better than my dd1 so obviously doesn't deliver nearly as much um force overall but if you mostly care about detail and smoothness it's got a beat hands down and that's an insane proposition from fanatec because if you've ever used the dd1 you'd know now that not only is the csl dd blowing away all of its competition in the mid-range and explains why fanatec pulled the csl elite in the csw but they've basically sabotaged their own high end whoa so one thing you're probably noticing is that my driving here is effortless [Music] with that this is acc one of the most or rather one of the least informative force feedback systems for most low end to mid-range wheels and here i am on a mid-range wheel just hammering it it's insane what they like there is no competition against this thing in the mid-range none of the other competitors have anything against this not only that it's actually better in most senses than fanatex high-end offerings too which is just it's such an insane proposition it's hard to even conceive of you know the moment i first tried this and i felt the smoothness and the lack of cogging and did my first slap i contacted the guys at fanatec i'm like guys am i insane am i going crazy or is this thing smoother than the dd-1 because i actually prefer it and the answer was the new motor is really good herman you know the tech has come a long way so this new in-runner-style motor compared to the outrunner seems to be a superior technology for direct drive um not belt driven direct driven wheelbase is for sim racing this purpose-built motor that fanatec have designed is helping me with even with my terrible driving [Music] but the sensation of driving in acc compared to my dd1 it's it's just more it's more effortless it's actually better than the dd1 [Music] it's so crazy i just i feel like i can't say this enough because i feel like people just it just won't process because it's still not processing for me it's been a day of me driving with this thing now and i'm still trying to understand what it is that i'm feeling now don't get me wrong you don't get everything at eight newton meters it's just shy of where i want it to be if it were 10 maybe 12 newton meters this would be a perfect wheelbase for me i would i would feel nothing missing from this but as it stands when the damping forces load up at speeds here especially at spa i feel something missing it's not fighting my arms as much as i'm used to with the dd-1 but it's a small sacrifice it's such a small sacrifice compared to what you actually get out of it [Music] it's hard to know what else to say i mean this was the litmus test it's acc this is currently one of the most popular sim racing titles on the market if not the most popular for competitive racing at least in terms of realistic sim racing stands of course eye racing and this is the one that most people struggle with in terms of their lowering gear and here it is fanatic have bridged the gap they've done it you can see why there's fanatic podium ads all over the game now i mean it just works it just makes sense [Music] as you can see it's just compared to my dd1 it's effortless i'm just i'm doing the micro corrections mid corner and acc i used to completely suck at doing that anyhow that's the csl dd in the crowd favorite assetto corsa compteone now we're here in the lesser played race room race room recently had a complete overhaul towards force feedback engine riding it from the ground up using physically based forces the net effect is in my opinion one of the top three force feedback engines in all of simracing now while this force feedback engine has translated quite well to the higher end direct driven wheelbases it hasn't really translated all that well to the lower end gear and belt driven ones and because the csl dd is here to supplant the entire mid-range ecosystem well what better title to test it out on very similar to acc in that regard that said of course we're here in the gorgeous grello manti racing porsche at the nurburgring nordschleifer this is anybody that knows me knows that this is about as home as it gets for me so i can't wait to try this out heavy traffic day here at the nurburgring 24-hour layout of course with a ton of contestants on it we have somewhere in the range of about 46 different cars all vying for their own space on the track so hopefully we can carve something out once we once we get going on the gp circuit here ah there we go and there's there's our first talking point for the csl dd one of the first criticisms that lower end wheelbase users have against the new algorithm is well i can't feel the car step out on me well turns out now you can that's no longer an excuse it's very easy to keep the car exactly where you want it with the cso dd difference between the dd1 well i've had to dial it a little bit differently to the dd1 in the force feedback options whereas the dd1 you can basically just unleash with everything maxed out at 100 maximum dynamic range and tailoring the linearity to suit you on the wheelbase with ah yes already emulating kevin astro here with the csl dd you have to actually dial in some linearity uh in the force feedback controls the reason for that is the mid corner sensation is a little bit anemic otherwise it's just not kind of heavy enough it just feels a little bit too light and flimsy so on a high downforce section like this where the front really loads up tons of air rushing over that side or under that front splitter i would be used to kind of fighting the dd-1 i'd be having to fight the wheel in order to turn it whereas on the csl dd it's a little bit of a different story as i loop back around the gp circuit trying to actually get a lap that we measure i don't get in front of anyone there nice amg gt3 there so you definitely feel the lack of overall torque in the space and race room you definitely have to make some compromises for it you'll notice as i'm going through some of the higher downforce higher compression sections we're going to get very close to clipping if not actually start clipping on sections where you traditionally wouldn't really want any clipping you would want the dynamic range retained so that's just one of the prices that you pay [Music] for a lower torque unit unfortunately [Applause] that said is it a price i'm glad to pay for the increase in fidelity over the dd1 yeah yeah no doubt about it absolute no-brainer now we're of course racing the ai set to 115 out of 120 fairly high by race room standards so you're going to see the ai do some things that are um slightly outside the realm of uh physical possibility for the player so i'd be interesting to witness here [Music] also the difference of rear engine versus front engine two very different chassis layouts of course where the porsche excels is just rotation even though i probably have the most understeery porsche in all of simracing currently not sure what it is about this thing i just can't get it rotating um anyway that said we're on my favorite racetrack of all time the nurburgring launch light for catching a massive slip there around the sabine schmidt's curve it's not going to be the uh glorious lap of the gods i'd hope for but let's see if we can make up this half second somewhere as we run into pretty heavy traffic and almost lose the car yes well you know what better litmus test of the dd or csl ditty do you want than that i basically drifted my way through all of hudson buck and somehow made up time how does that even work how is that even possible as i lost the time there of course thank you carrera much appreciated so csld what do you say i mean you're you're capable of pretty much top tier driving with this thing certainly far higher than i'm capable of but you know as much as i feel it on these high downforce sections i just i wanted to give me a little bit more resistance but that resistance is going to come at the expense of more clipping so i can turn it up i can turn up the per car multiplier as you can see i just got i got a clip there so every clip is detail lost so that's just part of the trade-off that you have to make for the csl dd but in this price range it's not really a trade-off i mean there's nothing here that competes with this there's no thrust master unit there's no old fanatec belt driven unit nothing nothing is even close to this i mean this is better than the td1 again you've got to wonder what fanatec were thinking like trying to sabotage that they're working so hard to sabotage everyone's mid-range ecosystem that they sabotage their own high-end ecosystem crazy all right let's see if we can navigate this traffic before it gets too bad oh no not here that's cost me [Music] i guess that's part of the fun trying to navigate traffic on the nordschleife on a qualifying lap so effortless and one of the big talking points of the marketing for the csl dd is feel subtle sidewall flex and you know interestingly enough in race room that's something you can feel quite obviously when you've got the car loaded up in a high compression corner you can feel the outside tires you can feel the contact patch expanding you can feel them loading it's a very progressive thing and it's because it's a very progressive wheelbase there's no grain there's no noise on the lower end to take to take away the sensation every force that you get through it is a necessary sensation that you're getting from the physics engine of the game helping you drive the car [Music] as i continue to drive the most undersery porsche in all sim racing but what else to save [Music] even here as i load up we're getting close now we're really really loading up those tyres don't do it all right kevin astro on deck you can see quite a large clip there so you are losing quite a bit of the dynamic range you are making a fairly substantial sacrifice here in race room for this detail now would i go back to the dd1 in spite of that probably not i think when it comes to it this is the kind of i mean the cso dd has the elements that are going to get me driving faster this uh the fanatec dd1 is going to get me the elements that are going to make me feel more engaged like i'm in a car really battling the thing but i think if i'm actually there to try to you know race competently but don't pay attention to this from there to try and race competently it's the csl dd that i'd be opting for [Music] as you can see really being slowed down by this traffic but i mean it's really giving you an idea of what this thing is capable of isn't it i'm just negotiating this traffic like it's second nature and sure it is probably my most comfortable race track in the world but at the same time the wheelbase is just helping me feel glued in with the car i mean i feel at one with this thing [Music] i just sorry i'm kind of in awe at how slow some of these cars negotiate that complex [Music] of course in sector three my favorite section in all of racing in all of motorsport [Applause] just brilliant absolutely brilliant you just feel what you need to and that's it whereas i could have quite easily driven in auto mobilista 2 or r factor 2 and man that would have been like a party in the hands it'd be like oh wow i can feel every bump i can feel every little micro everything that's happening but i mean realistically they overplay what happens in a real car you're not getting that much detail through the steering column and that's where oh no sure why not kevin astron tech that's where acc and race room really become the litmus test because they're just giving you the necessary forces and if they're enough for you to drive if you don't need anything cans in there then i mean you're doing pretty good with your wheelbase aren't you i've got to say it pairs so well with the mclaren gt3 rim if you're looking at the csl dd you probably want to be looking at the gt3 rim v2 as well it's quite a bit of kit they're made for each other you're still watching i'll put a card up above to my review of the mclaren rim on the dd1 base and of course our next driving test is going to be something quite different h pattern manual three pedals clutch heel and toe um with an oval rim so the self-aligning torque forces are really going to factor in we're going to let the car self-align and do a few slips on the rear end a few l drifters see how quick and snappy the the base is when it comes to that kind of driving because arguably that's probably the more important thing to try and work out we've just been dealing with [Applause] [Music] but all the same it's passed with absolutely flying colors hasn't it as we get across the finish line with the cso dd test in race room beeman g you knew this was coming it's one of my favorite sims so of course we're here in a classic bomb down muscle car minus the muscle part on some out of the way back roads track that it has no business being on so if we're ever gonna test the self-aligning torque forces it's gonna be right here right now let's do it unfortunately i wasn't able to get the h pattern shifter working it just won't bind the correct gears to the right positions could just be an internal uh bug on the driver i'm sure they'll sort that out before release so we're stuck in sequential mode for the time being and whoa that's snappy that is so quick to realign you know of all all the driving tests i've done so far today i think that's probably the most stark difference between the dd1 because the dd1 in beam and g has never quite been 100 no matter how i dialed it it always feels like it's either too loose in the center and not damp enough and then the big forces will come in and try and tear your arm off there's no in between whereas with this it's just it's just really good i have to excuse the slow driving this is not a performance vehicle this is actually close to as fast as you can drive it here believe it or not there we go but you know this is what we wanted because this is going in such slow motion it's giving me such a great platform to feel all the various different forces all the crazy stuff happening underneath the hood in the beam and g physics engine of which there's so much every compression you can feel the suspension contorting you can feel the tires flexing you can feel everything moving including the panels of the car it's one of the amazing things about bmg it is an absolute master class in physics modelling it's so far ahead in some ways and all the other sims that it's just it has to be driven to be believed and the cso dd allows you to actually experience it in full glory actually better than the dd1 just i'm still amazed by come on come on come on turn turn turn pretend pretend pretend you're a car pretend you have traction in those tiny tiny little wagon wheel tires all right doing my best here ladies and gents i am trying definitely trying wow what a car definitely feels like you're going in slow motion but ah it's just it's helping me drive it is just even though this car does not belong anywhere near this track all right see if i can survive this time come on turn baby turn oh that is not [Applause] i i don't feel that blanket of security that you feel in a gt3 car you know somehow believe it or not come on stay on the road or bridge really wherever the hell i am right now oh it's so quick it's so much qui it's quicker than the dd1 i'm pretty sure it's so quick to snap back and respond i mean drifting is like you know let's say hypothetically i owned a bmw m2 in the real world and let's say that hypothetically i may have drifted it here or there let's say that hypothetically it would have felt very similar to this hypothetically oh bmng this is the sense of weight transfer the contortion of weight just the overall sensation of driving is something completely different and feeling that pothole as well who needs laser scan tracks when you have this level of physics modeling as i just jump all over the place but this is more than i expected of all the tests that we've done here wow of all the tests that we've done this has probably brought the most joy to me and i mean that's the running motif with bmgs and it just brings joy to people but to actually feel it come alive on such a a greater level okay here we go coming up to possibly the most brutal part of the stage on the car itself no just survive surviving is the name of the game it's half the battle and with no traction and all rear wheel drive oh wow okay pan let's see if we can make it before we run out [Applause] all right nice and slow here's the crazy happen oh no i tried the handbrake turn it didn't work it's not the kind of thing that you want to be doing in a car like this it's it's just really you're pushing your luck even just trying to get it to the finish line okay here we go we've almost done it oh that look at that you just let it go and it does its own thing it's i can't imagine this would be anything less than stellar for drift driving so do let me know how you go i had an absolute blast brilliant for the 5 newton meter versus 8 newton meter boost kit version i figured the best way to get the difference would be to simply run the same scenarios back to back so everything we've driven thus far has been with the 8 newton meter boost kit now we're stripping it back to what the csl dd comes with with its base price of 349.95 euro so it's just a 5 newton meter version with a smaller power supply so this is quite literally my first time trying this out i've never driven through this before so these are my raw and uncut first impressions compared to the eight newton meters which i've been driving with the last two days so here we go okay so far so good you're getting getting a reasonable amount of low detail engines already damaged which is great okay definitely all right i mean it's still very snappy it's still very fast but i can already tell i want to turn up the forces like to hell with the clipping i want more more resistance because it's very very like it's super easy to turn i would imagine some of the faster aliens out there would actually enjoy this because it's actually super easy to drive with this lack of resistance against your hand but really you're not getting the magic of the direct drive this way uh you can definitely tell that eight newton meters was the spec that it was developed for and they cut it down for this version there's nothing wrong with it inherently it's just it doesn't really give you much of a driving sensation still very snappy but it's just it's kind of lacking everything i'm not even getting the detail so much anymore all i can think about is turning up turning up the strength and just clipping the crap out of everything as you can tell it does make driving supremely easy so if this is an entry-level unit for you if this is your foray away from let's say something gear driven like a logitech g920 i mean this is gonna be amazing for you you're gonna feel so much more detail and so much more force but when you get it closer to eight newton meters it actually starts to feel more like what an actual car feels like so that's the difference that you're you know you're dealing between so really depends on the individual where you are with your budget what you expect from sim racing i would say that if you can if you can afford the boost kit it's the no-brainer option for this it kind of unlocks the unit to perform at the spec that it was probably intended to whereas like this it's just a little bit more muted there's a bit less going on but as you can tell i'm still driving perfectly fine in fact i'm probably driving even easier because there's less stuff fighting against me which is a whole nother philosophical can of worms you know that story of the aliens that used to just drive with virtually no force feedback because it can be quicker so really depends what you like if you're a budget alien uh maybe the standard 5 newton mode will work for you [Applause] it's definitely very easy not fighting against me at all but at the same time not very inspiring either it just doesn't really give you that sensation of actually driving a car so much it feels more like a controller again and what i'm amazed by is like how much of that direct drive feeling goes away when the torque is dropped by just three newtons it's kind of actually kind of impressive i wasn't expecting it to be this drastic but it is um they rear drive shaft broken that's the end of our race but you can tell that fanatec were very crafty about the way that they thought about this about the way they segmented this up it's a very natural upgrade path to go for the 8 newton meters it definitely puts the the wheelbase in a much more natural spot so i can see why they did this it's enough to give you a taste of direct drive but not enough to really fulfill that uh craving that you develop so i would say for me definitely a little too underpowered for any kind of long-term use but if again if you're coming from a logitech ecosystem then this should still be an upgrade for you and working our way backwards for a lap of spa again let's try it out with five newton meters of talk this time here we go spicy all right [Music] i've turned this up to 100 both in the game and on the base so full that these are max forces across both and i can already tell you going through the bus stop it's just not enough it's just not enough it's not giving you enough resistance to really correct your driving it's it's just barely enough to drive with you get you're getting uh you're getting a decent amount of the lower details you can turn them up you can actually use linearity mode on the bass to um bring those up but there's just not enough of the heavier forces like right now i'm just going through our rouge there's nothing it's just it feels really limp it feels really really just anemic you don't really get the magic of the direct drive and i wanted to be more positive about the standard base 5 newton meter mode but it's very obvious that this base is intended to be used with the boost kit you if you're going to buy this you probably want to buy it with the boost kit it's sort of a part and parcel kind of a deal it's it's difficult for me to even drive like this because it's so flimsy i can just push the car way past the point i should be able to it kind of lacks that damned weightiness that i associate with acc it's just kind of surreal i'm sure after a few laps i would adjust to it and would be absolutely fine i'm sure i could get perfectly fine lap times with it it just it feels so flimsy to me as you can see i'm just i'm oversteering the car as a result of it and this is with 100 and 100 so i'm clipping the crap out of the force feedback if you keep an eye on that bar actually no you can't see that bar because of my um my fat noggin here in the corner but uh i can assure you that there's a lot of clipping going on so coming up to the last sector of spa one thing that is super easy with this is that you can really just kind of get into full scrub mode um not that it helps you in acc of course but you can really just kind of just yeet the car out for better or worse usually for worse so you know it is what it is maybe if you're more of a casual gamer you're into the f1 2021 things like that it might be might be doing it for you but i would say if you consider yourself or fancy yourself a more thoroughbred sim racer this probably won't quite be enough for you it's i'm actually impressed at how much of a difference those three newtons make it's quite literally a make or break kind of a difference so you know for better or worse it is what it is fanatic are very crafty they know exactly what they're doing so yeah um you definitely feel that eight newton meter boost that's for sure well ladies and gentlemen with that i conclude my fanatec csl dd review you can probably tell that this has been a long filming process i'm a little bit worse for wear right now and i'm kind of struggling to bring it all together the last thing i expected to be saying here today is that i actually prefer this baby little direct drive unit to my dd-1s but there you have it i do it they seem to have improved the motor technology substantially in the years since the podium series came out when it comes to the lower and the mid-range forces this unit simply conveys them far more elegantly and far more cleanly so if you're the kind of person who doesn't need the arm-tearing forces the csl dd is an absolute no-brainer it seems infanatex search to completely dominate the mid-range of the sim racing market they've kind of eaten into a chunk of their own high end so this leaves them in a very precarious position but i hope this gamble pays off for them in the end now the discussion between the 8 newton meter boost kit version and the standard 5 newton meter it goes without saying in this case that the original whiteboard design of this unit would have been the eight newton meter version it would have very likely been a marketing decision to cut it back and segments up the product line in order to get more people into the ecosystem and spread things out it's simply just good business practice having driven in both modes i would strongly recommend if you're going to purchase a csl dd that you budget for the bundled boost kit as well it's just the fast superior experience the only exception i would make to this is if perhaps you're somebody coming from the logitech ecosystem with extremely low powered wheels or perhaps you're coming from a controller and this is your first wheelbase ever in that case i can see the five newton meter version being quite good for you as a stepping stone into sim racing as it were this leaves you with an upgrade path for the 8 newton meter version should you choose to upgrade and get into the hobby on a more deeper level it definitely helps unlock more of what i perceive to be the benefits of direct drive i think at five newton meters it's getting so close that the forces are so low that it almost doesn't matter that it's more detailed than the belt and the gear driven wheel bases so again if you do have it in your budget if you are considering this unit i would strongly recommend getting with the bundled boost kit now in the spirit of being completely transparent the boost kit is actually just this it's a power supply brick it's just a high wattage one that can deliver more current to the unit and unlock its potential the potential that would have been the original design before they cut it back to segment the product line as i say don't hate the player hate the game this is just a subset of capitalism and it's just good business practice even with the boost kit being what it is even if you don't think a power supply brick can be warranted to be charged at 149.95 euro this unit just has no competition even at 500 euros there's just nothing out there that's going to give you this level of elegant detail this is completely crushing the mid-range of the market fanatec are going to spread direct drive technology throughout the sim racing scene and the belt drive and the gear drive tech will only be relegated to the super low end very shortly so with all that being said you can have your qualms about the way they've segmented up the boost kit versus the standard version but costs aside there's still nothing that competes with this thing recapping on the behavior of the unit itself it's smooth it doesn't cog there's no low level grain it is a tier higher than the podium series which again is so very strange to say but another thing i do want to say is that this as of now will become my primary unit i won't be bolting my dd1 back on here i'll be continuing to use the csl dd that is legitimately how impressed i am by this little thing from what i can tell it's extremely efficient it hasn't gotten warm at all not from what i can tell maybe a little bit on the rear there but the passive cooling system seems to be doing completely fine and diffusing all the heat that the unit generates which is a bit of a cry from the fanatec dd1 and the dd2 which do have a fan cooling system the quick release is also actually a bit easier to use there's no actual screw that you have to kind of tighten back no cushion or little rubber thing that you have to compress in order to get the two to lock in uh you do however need to use the actual fastening bolt in order to stop the units um kind of rattling against each other so until the quick release 2 system gets invented and comes around this is the best that we have to deal with for now as we've spoken about before there's a bunch of rails all along the units for every possible mounting configuration you can conceive of so shouldn't be a problem getting it compatible with whatever cockpit you're trying to mount it to whether it be side mounted bottom mounted or anything in between in a perfect world i would have loved to have seen this unit put out 10 to 12 newton meters that for me wouldn't require anything more i'd be able to maintain the full dynamic range of the signal the force feedback signal coming out of the computer as i would want it without compromising anything to get the weightiness and the damping forces that i want as it stands the cso dd is about 90 there just that extra 10 and would essentially be looking at a perfect wheelbase as far as i'm concerned there's a bunch of accessories you can look at including an added table clamp or whatever you're attempting to do again if you're looking to table clamp it i would say keep it to the uh five newton meter spec eight might be a little much unless you really hate your desk and you wanna see it in splinters and of course once again i can't stress this enough if you're really looking to get the most out of the csl dd and get the experience that i got here today buy it with the bundled boost kit you'll get 19.95 off euros anyway check your regional pricing to see how it differs for you but i would strongly recommend that bundle as always i have links to the product page of this unit and all regions down below so make sure to check that out if you're going to buy one please do consider using those links as they do help support this channel so i sincerely hope you enjoyed this review as much as i enjoyed making it i can't believe i have a new primary wheelbase that's not what i was expecting to find here today but i sincerely hope that if you do purchase one that you enjoy it every bit as much as i enjoy mine make sure to subscribe to catch our upcoming video for the csl pedals made specifically to complement the csl dd and until then i'll see you guys later you

Channel: Ermz

Views: 150,452

Keywords: Jimmy Broadbent, eSports, Direct Drive, Sim Racing Wheel 2021, Cheapest Sim Racing Wheel, Sim Racing Wheel Buyer's Guide, Best Sim Racing Wheel

Id: hvc6wifmp0A

Length: 45min 53sec (2753 seconds)

Published: Mon Aug 09 2021