Logitech G PRO Racing Wheel Review

I’m not going to lie. This is an exciting moment for me. My first ever sim racing wheel was a Logitech racing wheel, and I’ve grown and improved alongside various racing wheels from Logitech.

So to now see the company that helped me get into sim racing releasing a high-end direct drive wheel. Well, that makes me a little warm and fuzzy inside.

But that’s definitely enough fanboying for this review. I’m here to give my impartial thoughts on the new Logitech Pro Racing Wheel. This wheel is entering the sim racing world in a completely different landscape than when it last released a product.

Rolling back a few years to the release of the budget-friendly G923, budget-friendly gear and belt-driven wheels dominated the market. If you wanted a more professional sim racing wheel, you had to spend big money on a direct-drive wheel base.

But fast-forward to this year, and that has all changed. Sim racers have been treated to a wide array of smaller, cheaper, and more accessible direct-drive wheel bases.

Now, if you want to jump into direct drive sim racing, you don’t need to take out a bank loan anymore. So when I received this new Pro racing wheel from Logitech, I was convinced it was going to be a product in a similar vein. And then I saw the size of the box.

What is the Logitech Pro Wheel?

This Pro racing wheel is definitelyn’t a small, underpowered direct-drive wheel base. Instead, it treads a middle ground between those offerings and the really hardcore high-end wheel bases. And it comes with a relatively high price tag of €1099 or $999.

And this leads me to my big question. Is there space in sim racing for this style of racing wheel at this price point? Have Logitech missed the boat a little bit with their direct drive entry, or have they really nailed the perfect product for a wide range of sim racers?

Before I go any further, I just want to thank Logitech for sending me this wheel for review before it was officially announced. This really helped us bring you this review quickly, ready to help you decide whether to purchase it.

But rest assured, this review is completely unbiased. If something is a bit rubbish, I’ll definitely tell you, and if it’s good I’ll give praise where it’s due.

Price

But let’s rewind around 30 seconds and touch on that price point a little bit more.

The cost of the Logitech Pro wheel is towards the more premium end of the market. But you do have to remember this price includes the wheel base, a steering wheel and a table clamp.

The cost on launch for the Logitech Pro Racing Wheel is €1099 or $999.

While this may seem expensive, after all, that price would buy you a direct drive wheel base and a steering wheel from other brands.

To put this price into perspective, an equivalent offering from another brand, such as Fanatec, would cost around €900.

That price includes a CSL DD with the boost kit at €599. But that wouldn’t net you the same power output as this wheel, because the CSL DD only produces 8Nm.

You would then need to purchase a steering wheel, which starts from around €199 for something similar to this Pro wheel. You’d then also really need to purchase the QR1 quick release, as the QRLite that is supplied with Fanatec’s cheaper wheels isn’t very good. And a table clamp, if you really want to match this wheel’s specs, costs another €30.

As you can see from this example, the Logitech Pro wheel is more expensive than an exact comparison from another brand. But you get more performance for that price point.

You would also be part of Logitech’s new direct drive ecosystem, which I’m almost certain will expand with additional products in future years. But I’ll talk more about that later!

The Design of the Logitech Pro Wheel

I’ve touched on the price and the overall landscape of sim racing. But now, let’s really dive into this Pro racing wheel.

I’m going to start by looking at the design, then move on to the performance, and round everything out by talking about compatibility, availability, and my final thoughts.

Wheel Base

And I want to kick things off with the wheel base itself. And it certainly is a big boy. I may just be thinking this because I’ve become so used to the small form factor direct drive wheel bases of late.

However, the size and design do resemble the same design philosophy that Logitech has used in the past. To put the size into perspective, I compared it to a Podium DD1, which is a fairly typical size for a direct-drive wheel base.

A DD1 measures in at 240mm not including the protruding drive shaft, 155mm deep and 175mm wide.

In comparison, this Pro wheel is 220mm long, 190mm deep, and 300mm wide at its widest point.

So you can see that it’s a little shorter, but it is slightly deeper and substantially wider.

This design choice is really comprised of two things. The first is that there is an internal fan included to help dissipate heat which takes up room inside the body. And then, the width is also related to the table clamp and overall mounting philosophy.

I had the pleasure of speaking to Richard Neville, Logitech’s portfolio manager for simulation and controllers. He told me that the design philosophy behind the Logitech Pro racing wheel was ease of use and accessibility.

Table clamp

The inclusion of a table clamp emphasises this. One of the priorities for this Pro wheel was that it be usable in a wide variety of scenarios, including mounting to a desk.

Now, mounting an 11Nm direct drive wheel base to a desk with a single table clamp sounds like madness. But combining the strength of the table clamp and the width of the wheel base provides an extremely solid platform.

This is why the bottom of the wheelbase is relatively wide. It has a pretty wide and aggressive stance, and I kind of dig it. The top and rear section of the wheelbase swoop away from the driver in a similar fashion to a Formula 1 car.

The front design

The front design, with the huge grill and angular lines, looks pretty cool.

There is an OLED screen on the front of the wheel base that can be used as the central point for changing settings. The settings button right next to it accesses this screen, and you can adjust settings using the steering wheel, even when you’re in-game. I’ll talk about this in more detail later.

My main disappointment with the wheel base is that it’s rather plasticky in its construction. I presume the outer body isn’t required to be metal because it isn’t used as a heat sink like some other wheel bases. But it does slightly detract from the overall aesthetic.

Although, this is already a relatively heavy wheel base. So finishing all of the exterior in metal would only add to that weight. So I can’t imagine it would have been an overly practical choice.

Despite this, matte and glossy plastic are used to add layers of interest to the design. And I like the use of glossy plastic on the logos. It does add some extra layers of class.

Around the rear of the wheel base are a variety of connection ports, along with ventilation for the fan. There are three USB ports, one of which can be used to connect the pedals. I presume the other two will be for additional peripherals in the future.

Then there is a power supply port and a micro USB port. I would have rather seen a USB C port here, but I guess it wasn’t required, so micro USB it is.

Steering Wheel

Moving onto the design of the steering wheel, I always firmly believed Logitech had nailed this in the past. The G29 and G923 were great-looking budget steering wheels.

And you can certainly see the same design philosophy in this wheel rim. There is a similar combination of materials in use, but everything feels a touch more premium.

The perforated leather that wraps the hand grips is extremely soft to the touch and feels comfortable in your hands without racing gloves on. The metal that is used for the face plate has a nice subtle brushed effect and the use of plastic has been reduced compared to the G923.

The shift lights on the top of the wheel have gone; instead, they have been moved to the front of the wheel base. This wheel also has a few new additions.

There is the standard array of push buttons, which all have a very short throw. This makes button inputs very easy to make, and there is a nice click when each button is activated.

8-way joystick

There is an 8-way joystick, again with a very short range of movement. This can be used to navigate menus or look around your car and much like the buttons, feels positive and relatively high quality.

Although I do keep trying to push the joystick in and rotate it. This is a feature that is found on some other steering wheels and allows additional inputs to be mapped without having to include additional buttons. It’s a little bit of a shame that this feature isn’t on this wheel.

Rotary encoders

Then there are two quirky rotary encoders. One is placed facing the driver, and the other facing the driver’s hands. This kind of works in practice. The bottom left encoder is almost a thumb encoder requiring very little hand movement to activate. While the right-hand encoder is much more traditional requiring you to remove your hand to activate.

These are very light to use allowing multiple changes to be made very quickly. I quite like this approach as I could make quick adjustments much easier when compared to some stiffer encoders on other steering wheels.

Both of these encoders also have a push function, allowing for an additional input to be mapped to each one.

Magnetic Shifters and Dual Clutch

Flip the wheel over, and you’ll notice a few elements that have never been on a Logitech wheel before. First, there is a set of magnetic shifters that have just the right amount of resistance and are very quiet to operate.

These are a breath of fresh air, as most modern-day steering wheels have extremely loud shifters. The shifting on this Logitech Pro wheel is effortless and very smooth.

Just below the shifters are a couple of dual-clutch paddles. These have the same metal construction as the shifters and are analogue. This allows you to map them to various functions including throttle and brake, or as a true dual-clutch.

Within G Hub you can set the bite point of the shifters allowing for a perfect getaway from the line every time!

Quick release

And then there is the quick release. This marks the first time Logitech has included a quick release, and it points to them potentially releasing additional steering wheels in the future.

The quick release has been developed to be smooth, lightweight and function without any issues. The design takes a rather familiar form factor, especially if you’ve been using the Fanatec QR1. But this isn’t a bad thing.

The design allows users to easily grip and remove the steering wheel in a single action. Then, to reattach the wheel to the wheel base, it’s a simple case of aligning the arrow on the steering wheel with the arrow and groove on the wheel base. Then push, and the wheel is ready to race.

Unlike some wheel bases, Logitech’s attempt is rather bulletproof. During use, even at the maximum torque setting of 11Nm, the quick release mechanism does not slip or move unnecessarily.

Table Clamp

With the Logitech Pro wheel, you do get a table clamp included. This table clamp attaches to the front of the wheel base via a sliding mechanism. And it locks the wheel to your table, desk or sim rig via a single strong rotating clamp.

The table clamp screws up to the underside of your surface very easily. This allows you to mount and unmount the wheel base very quickly. And the surface of the clamp that touches your desk has a nice high-quality rubber pad.

This rotates individually of the screw, ensuring that the underside of your surface isn’t marked or damaged. This is often a complaint when using table clamps from other brands, so it’s refreshing to see Logitech create a nice solution.

The clamp secures your wheel base centrally, and the width of the wheel base helps keep the whole product stuck in place. I’m pleased to say that the table clamp really works, even when racing with the full 11Nm of torque available.

Initially, I was sceptical, thinking that the wheel would eventually shake itself loose. But across multiple hours of racing, the table clamp kept the wheel base in its original position.

Wheel Performance

With Logitech’s previous experience with sim racing, many will have extremely high hopes for this, their first direct drive wheel. And I can say right off the bat, that Logitech has nailed the force feedback feeling with this wheel.

There are quite simply layers of force feedback present in this wheel that I’ve not really experienced with other direct drive wheel bases. Every company handles the translation of force feedback differently, but Logitech has seemingly managed to almost split the force feedback into layers. And I think this is in part thanks to TrueForce.

The first layer of force feedback provides a strong, weighty steering wheel. As you attack a corner, you have to muscle the car into turning, and hold against the resistance of the motor trying to push back against your input.

This feels excellent. While the force feedback is strong, it’s oh so smooth. There isn’t really a presence of unnecessary shaking in an effort to translate different forces to you. Everything with this Pro wheel is intentional, strong, and detailed where it needs to be.

Smaller force feedback details

While the regular force feedback feeling of weight shifts, and different forces are all present, there is a secondary layer of forces. These are reserved for smaller vibrations such as the bottom of your car making contact with the road, rumble strip vibrations and how it feels as your wheels break traction.

During any of these scenarios, the motor inside the wheelbase will vibrate and rumble accordingly. Rather than simply shaking your wheel out of your hand every time you ride over a kerb. There is an underlying rumble as though you are in the car and you’re actually feeling the vibrations through the tyres and body of the car. So you end up with this dual channel of force feedback.

Other wheel bases will apply additional wheel shake, vibration and force when applying these forces. But this separation in this Pro wheel really helps inform the driver exactly what forces they are feeling. There is a distinct difference in forces such as kerbs, wheel slip and weight transfer.

TrueForce

I mentioned TrueForce there, so I thought it was only right that I explain it a little more. TrueForce made its debut on the G923. This technology allowed in-game audio to be translated into vibrations and rumbling within the steering wheel. This meant that if you rev the car while not moving, you can feel the revs through the steering wheel.

With this Pro wheel, TrueForce returns and has been reworked to produce an even more immersive experience. TrueForce feeds right into the physics engine and extracts a variety of different in-game audio cues and effects. Then the software within the wheel translates these effects into a variety of vibrations within the steering wheel.

There are now elements such as a slight jerk or vibration when you shift up or down. And you’ll feel varying vibration levels as your wheels slip across a track surface. Additional elements such as engine revs, rumble strip vibrations and car vibrations under acceleration are all present.

And these vibrations work alongside the force feedback generated from the direct drive motor to produce a strangely realistic feeling.

Temperature control and fans

Unlike many small direct drive wheel bases that have launched recently, Logitech has taken a different approach when it comes to cooling. They’ve installed a single fan inside the Pro wheel base, which works to keep the internal temperature low.

This means that the wheel base’s external body doesn’t really heat up at all. Instead, the internal fan dynamically varies its speed depending on how hot the wheel base is getting.

This means that if you are racing in a warm environment for long periods of time, you may hear some fan noise as the fan works harder to keep the internals cool.

But I’m happy to say this really wasn’t an issue for me. I race in a relatively average temperature room, and even when racing for longer periods with higher force feedback strength settings, I never heard the fan speed up.

There really is very little fan noise when operating the Pro wheel. Only in extreme situations will the fan noise become an issue.

What the inclusion of an internal fan does do, however, is it prevents the outside of the wheel base from heating up. Some wheel bases get very hot due to the external walls being used as a heat sync. But not this Pro wheel.

Adjustability

The Logitech Pro wheel features a sharp OLED display on the front of the wheel base. And from here you can access a variety of customisable settings and options.

You can adjust the wheel’s steering lock, the overall strength of force feedback, the output response curve, and more settings. If you are connected to a console, you can change these through the wheel base itself, or you can access them via the G Hub software on a PC.

These adjustments work alongside in-game settings to really help you dial in the overall feeling you get from the wheel.

Once you have created a selection of settings that feel just right, you can save those to a custom profile. You can have several different profiles saved, each with different settings, and you can quickly change between these profiles on the fly.

This gives you a lot of scope to create different settings for different games or for different cars in-game.

For example, in a game such as Forza or Gran Turismo, you can create a profile that is more suited for road cars, another profile that works well with track cars, and a third profile that is ideal for open-wheel Formula 1 cars.

And then, as you jump in and out of different cars in-game, you can select the correct profile on the wheel in seconds. This saves a lot of time re-adjusting settings repeatedly as you chop and change cars and games.

External actions and button mapping

One cool feature that can be configured for PC sim racers via G Hub is enabling external actions. By this I mean you can configure certain buttons or inputs on the Pro wheel to perform certain actions within Windows and other software outside of the game you playing.

For example, you can set a single button to map a command in Discord to mute the voice chat. Or toggle recording on and off in OBS. You won’t need to exit your game to enable these features.

While racing, press the button assigned to that action, and you’ll be able to perform that action. If you do this, G Hub will then disable that button in-game, meaning it won’t perform an in-game action at the same time.

This feature is fantastic and really removes the need to take your hands off the wheel to push a shortcut on your keyboard or button box. And it opens up features such as push to talk via Discord rather than using an in-game voice chat.

Customisable rev lights

I mentioned that the rev lights have been removed from the steering wheel and are now on the front of the wheel base. Like other parts of this wheel, these rev lights can be customised.

There is a variety of presets that allow the rev lights to shift in different patterns. You can go from left to right, or change it from outside to inside for example.

If that isn’t enough, you can jump into G Hub and customise the color of each individual LED light. The rev lights in action are incredibly bright, and you can really see in your peripheral vision just when to shift.

Compatibility

Console compatibility

Much like previous Logitech sim racing products, this Pro wheel comes in two variations. You have a PlayStation-compatible variant and a separate Xbox-compatible variant.

Both of these products are compatible with PCs. This requires sim racers to choose the correct version of the Pro wheel that aligns with the console they’ll be racing on. Unfortunately, this also means that you won’t be able to race on both Xbox and PS5 with a single Pro wheel.

However, Logitech has worked closely with both PlayStation and Xbox to ensure that all wheel functionality works with either console. This means that on normally restrictive Xbox consoles, additional functionality such as the OLED display, rev lights, and additional inputs will work.

This is pretty huge, as Xbox normally limits any additional buttons or inputs and simply doesn’t allow them to work. For example, many buttons on Fanatec steering wheels simply won’t register or work when connected to an Xbox console.

For Logitech to be able to work closely with Xbox to ensure this additional functionality is supported is fantastic news. Now, it is up to individual game developers to decide whether they want to incorporate this additional functionality into their games.

Some racing games may not support these additional inputs. But that decision is with the game developer. Logitech has provided the platform for the extra inputs and functionality to be fully operational.

With PlayStation, as with most peripherals, all additional functionality on the Pro wheel will work with most games.

Additional peripherals

The introduction of the quick release system to the Logitech Pro wheel leads us to believe that future steering wheel add-ons will be available. Nothing has been officially announced regarding the future roadmap, but it is a pretty safe bet that this will be the case.

There are also three USB ports on the rear of the Pro wheel base. Again nothing has been officially announced, but it is safe to say that these ports are there for a reason. This could mean we will likely see additional shifters and handbrake options in the future.

Cons of the Pro wheel

Now it wouldn’t be right if I didn’t mention some negatives in this Pro racing wheel, as there are some.

My first and main complaint is the size of the wheel base. As I mentioned earlier it’s pretty big. It’s much larger than the smaller budget-friendly direct drive wheel bases, but that’s to be expected. However, it also has a considerably larger footprint than a lot of other high-end wheel bases.

This is to ensure that it can both cool itself efficiently and that it is stable while using the table clamp. I understand this choice, but it does take a little adjustment when transitioning from other wheel bases.

There is also an incline on the angle that the steering wheel is pointing. This made setting up the ideal mounting position slightly more awkward as I had to angle my wheel mount down at the front. No other direct drive wheel base has this incline.

It’s there because of the table clamp. When sitting at a desk racing, you need this incline to have a comfortable driving position. So having it built in is nice for that use case.

However, it would have been nice if this incline was built into the table clamp, or if there was a way of side mounting this wheel base. That would make mounting in a rig a little easier.

Another area that the size affects is when aligning your wheel up with your monitor or TV. Like many sim racers, I like to position my wheel as close to my display as I can. This allows me to feel more immersed in the car I’m driving. Due to the length and height of this wheel, I now have my wheel much further away from my display.

Finding the perfect mounting position

I’ll often have the top of the steering wheel overlap my display so that I can see the on-screen dashboard through the gap underneath the top of the wheel rim. However, the fact that the wheel base sticks up so much from the driveshaft makes setting up in this manner very hard.

From my perspective, I’ve had to lower the whole wheel so that the top of the wheel base doesn’t obscure my on-screen dash. However, doing so reduces the gap between the top of the wheel base and the steering wheel rim. This means I can no longer see my full on-screen dash when racing games such as ACC or iRacing.

This is possibly my main annoyance when racing with this wheel, as it disrupts my usual flow. I have to look around my wheel rim to constantly see vital information.

I also feel that the steering wheel itself lacks a little personality. Its design is OK, but there isn’t anything that I particularly love about the way it looks. The older G923 had a bit more of a unique character. The angled lines and skinny face plate made the wheel unique.

Steering wheel design

However, this Pro steering wheel design is extremely similar to other steering wheels available. I presume the designers were going for that pure motorsport look, incorporating the same shaped faceplate from brands such as OMP as a real-world wheel. But I think this is a slightly missed opportunity.

Other than the strangely mounted rotary encoder, if you remove the Logitech logo and blue accents, you’d have a hard time figuring out which brand designed this wheel. I would have liked to see something a little unique. Some extra design flourishes.

But, with the introduction of the quick release, this area may not be an issue in the future. Logitech now has the platform to release additional steering wheel peripherals making this a moot point.

Should you buy the Logitech Pro Wheel?

And I’m going to try and wrap things up there. This has been a pretty lengthy review, but it’s a product that I believe deserves an in-depth discussion. Being Logitech’s first direct drive racing wheel, it needs to be talked about. As this could well become one of the most popular sim racing products on the market as time goes by.

I have to say that the force feedback that this wheel produces is incredible. The combination of different effects is outstanding, and a lot of that is thanks to TrueForce. It almost makes me not want to use other direct drive wheel bases, as I know I will be missing out on some of the small layers of detail that are present here.

Although for me and my current setup, the size of the product, and the drawbacks associated with that mean that this won’t be my new regular racing wheel. If Logitech releases a formula-style steering wheel in the future, fixing the issue of screen coverage that I have. Then I would have to strongly consider it as my new favourite wheel.

But that leads me to have to answer the question that I asked at the beginning of this review. Is there space for this style of racing wheel? And I firmly believe there is.

This wheel offers force feedback that is hard to beat at this price point. It comes with a decent steering wheel, and a table clamp that works at supporting this wheel when desk mounted. And that is exactly what a lot of sim racers may be looking for.

Review written by Felix König

About Felix König

Felix König is a professional Esports sim racer from Seattle, WA, and is the founder and editor of Sim Race Reviews. In addition to over 10 years of professional sim racing and competing in both iRacing and Assetto Corsa Competizione competitions, Felix has been sharing his sim racing knowledge and expertise with other sim racers. His passion lies in sim racing, and in particular in the plethora of sim racing hardware from racing wheels to pedals and more.

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