Belt Drive Vs. Direct Drive - Battle of the Five's

Our last few videos spawned the idea for this video. Which is better A direct Drive Wheel or a Belt Drive Wheel if they were of similar quality and strength. If you look to the sub 6 nm group there is one battle that could answer that question. The Thrustmaster TGTII wheelbase is rumored to have almost 6 Newton Meters of Belt Driven Power. The Moza Racing R5 base has about 5.5 Newton Meters of Direct Drive Power. How do they compare.

For this shootout we focus on the bases alone. I am using the exact same rig, pedals and setup out on track. Despite each company having a selection of rims to chose from, we are only focusing on the base, not the wheel rims.

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#iracing #simracing #assettocorsa #thrustmaster #mozaracing #fanatec #ricmotech #directdrive

[booth]

THIS IS THE SIMPIT!!! Absolutely great video, absolutely loved this piece, one of the best for sure! Looking forward to more direct comparisons, these are truly consumer friendly videos!

[GG-sifw]

I love your testing standards; throwing out the fastest and slowest times and averaging the rest. Also, kudos to testing with a vintage vehicle to measure the nuance of the wheel base.

[peterwood]

Really interesting. The t-gtii really holds its own.

[gregdoucet]

Great comparison and testing! I’d love to see a shoot out between the alpha mini and Moza R9 😀

[magicsilence]

Very interesting and incredible results🧐

[nukedogger]

Not shocked. Honestly if you are a good and consistent driver with one wheel, you will most likely be good and consistent with another. Many moons ago I did some testing between my G27 and my brother's T500. Once I got used to the higher ffb, I was running similar enough times and consistency. Upgrading wheels more or less comes down to feel and in some cases power, obviously not in this comparo for power. If you are looking for a new wheel, as in you didn't have one, this type of comparo really highlights what your options are like and what to sort of expect.

[RacingBilliken]

Thorough and helpful video! Thank you for making this video. Moza wheels seem a bit expensive, which is causing me to lean towards the Thrustmaster setup.

[RacingWithChuck]

Shaun,
I’ve been in sim racing probably about as long as you. The DD is and has been one of the last high upgrade for me, and I’ve debated for a while. I bought a set of CTS(CST) pedals when they were the best around 2010. Had a t500
And several Sam Maxwell Momo rims. Became disabled 2104-18, sold it all. Came back and went with a t300. About two months ago, purchased Simtrecs from v3(not half as good as CST), 5+ tenths I’ve improved. The marketing on the DD bases they’ve done a great job, imo more immersive they’re not going to get the performance gain as a high line pedal, imo. I’m just not paying $2500 for a simucube & rim. Folks across the pond have been saying good things about the TM dd. We won’t get the opportunity to buy until March, maybe you’ll get your hands on one sooner. Good video 👍

[simonoregan]

During COVID here in South Africa I could only get the TGT II locally. I was not disappointed. Seeing as I had an old T500RS previously and I had that wheel. I only had to buy the TGT II base. It was a no brainer from a price & supply & support standpoint.

[dannyadams]

Hello Shaun, great video. I have been considering upgrading to a dd wheel base from my CSL Elite for some time. However, after watching you videos, I have decided to put that money into upgrading my pc. Keep the vids coming and happy new year.

[MrBasjunk]

I have the old T-GT and dreamed about a DD for a long time. And finally tried out a fanatic DD and did conclude that the wheels were very similar. I could not tell the difference really only slightly so I kept my T-GT in the end.

[tmoshamo]

So the tl;dr is....if you have the tgt 2, dont upgrade unless it breaks, or you just really want a wheel rim thats only compatible with a dd base, or you just want to😎 thank you for the video shaun. Peace✌

[CrazyAboutVinylRecords]

I ended up buying the Thrustmaster TGTII, though I was seriously considering the Moza R5 bundle and Ras1ution 2 converter (I do PC and PS5 racing.) Ultimately it came down to me not wanting to have to fiddle with a middleware device to get things working on the PS5. The difference in cost was that the Thrustmaster was about $60 more than the R5 + Ras1ution 2 setup. If I only did PC racing I would have bought the R5 bundle. I don't think you can go wrong either way.

[PageCrowes]

I picked the GT2 (open box discount) because Im only playing Gt7 with psvr2 and using next level racing hf8 thru simhub on pc thru ps5. The immersion is simply awesome my friends. The extra Immersion the wheel gives you for gt7 is pretty cool with the transducer and vibrations in wheel.

[jackr.]

Hi Shaun, I hope you are well.
Idea for a video, belt drive wheels vs DD wheels for catching slides. I went from a T500 to a Accuforce V2 Pro just about 3 years ago, the first thing I noticed was how easy it was to catch slides with the AF V2 as compared to the T500.

[FROOB]

Want to know how sad I am? That car sound at the end of this video is from a 19Bozzy92 video featuring a Lamborghini Huracan leaving the pits at Monza, in his most popular "best of" compilation I think.

[mr]

I have a CSW 2.5. I was able to try the CSL DD for a few days. I decided against buying the CSL DD. I could feel some improvements, but they weren't enough to justify me purchasing the unit. Looks like, if I do want to upgrade, I'll probably need to save up for a bigger upgrade (and I'm not sure I'd run the wheel at a much higher force).

[reviewforthetube]

Something nobody will tell you is. Thede 5 to 7 or 8nm belt wheels feel stronger then 5 to 8 dd wheels. Just the way the belt and motor is pulling feels stronger then the way magnets react in a dd wheel. Ive alwyas understood why dd wheles feel better in the hugher nm range even if you were to lower settings a bit. For me it took about 15nm to truely undrrstand why dd is so so good not just in smoothness but the reaction and response and snap with that extra torque. Even if resucing down to 8nm its still worth having a 15+ nm wheelbase thats dd. If i didnt finslly get to try the stronger ones i would have stuck with my cswv2.5 because yes i liked it more then any 5 to 8nm dd wheel on the market.

But I will say 1 full second is the difference between winning and losing many times over again. Lol

But yes you wont gain times with either of these.

[airtonaraujo]

I have a DIY BD steering wheel with a huge motor and reduction... it's hard to hold, never set it higher than 60% of force.

[Substance]

Had the logitech G25 for many years and wanted a quality upgrade but didn't have a clue and thought trustmaster were at the top of the game for wheels and so I bought the GT2. Was devastated when I unboxed it to find it as "nobbly" as the G25 when I expected nice smooth rotation. Hearthbroken when investigating DD and now stuck with the GT2. BUT maybe I shouldn't be...the FF is good, the build quality is there, it's 6NM is strong enough and it does the job while being significantly cheaper than the top DD wheels and with plenty of buttons and reasonably good looking.. SO, I dunno...still haven't experienced DD to tell if I should be crying myself to sleep or not but I will never like the nobbly rotation that's for sure. It's also got an idle high pitched whine from the mechanism which I don't appreciate.