Best Sim Racing Setup Under $5000

When it comes to building a sim rig, $5000 is a fantastic budget, and it should ensure you get an extremely high-performing sim racing setup.

However, there is a lot of choice within this price range. Your $5000 sim racing setup could utilise various high-end racing wheels, steering wheels and pedals. Some steering wheels such as the Fanatec BMW M4 GT3 can cost up to $1500 just for the steering wheel alone.

In this $5000 sim rig build guide, I’ll run through our recommendations for maximising the performance you can get from this healthy budget.

I’ll look at putting together an entire sim racing setup for under $5000, including a top-tier gaming monitor. This high-end sim racing setup will include everything you need to go sim racing.

The sim racing products that make up this rig build

For this $5000 sim racing setup, I’ve chosen a combination of extremely high-performance sim racing products and some mid to high-end products.

The reason I haven’t opted for extremely high-performance gear for every category is that $5000 quite simply isn’t enough to do this.

From the wheel base to the pedals and cockpit, you can easily spend over $1000 in each individual category. For the absolute best sim racing gear, we’ll quickly exceed our $5000 budget.

This combination of sim racing products allows us to really experience the very best force feedback from our wheel base. This combines excellent performance from all other parts of this sim rig build.

Why choose this $5000 racing simulator build?

This sim racing build for a $5000 budget allows us to really handpick some of the very best sim racing products. If you don’t have a $5000 budget, or if you already own some sim racing gear, you can always pick and choose some products from this rig build.

I’d suggest checking out our $2000 sim racing setup or our $1000 sim racing setup to see how to buy a whole sim rig, wheel and pedal setup for a much lower price.

This $5000 sim racing build includes a gaming monitor and monitor mount, which together cost over $1300. Removing these elements will reduce the cost of this build to under $4000.

The main bulk of our budget will be spent on the wheel base, as this is one part of a sim racing setup where you’ll immediately feel the increased performance. And high powered direct drive racing wheels offer the highest level of performance for the best sim racing setup.

I’ve opted for the mighty 27Nm Asetek Invicta wheel base. This is one of the best direct drive wheel bases available, with very few direct competitors.

The benefit of this wheel base is that you have up to 27Nm of peak torque available at your disposal. But you can reduce it down to any level depending on the car you’re driving.

With lower-cost wheel bases, you may be locked into lower peak torque figures which can limit the maximum performance available.

The rest of this sim racing setup has been put together to support the extreme power of the Invicta wheel base. The cockpit is sturdy enough to handle the power, and the steering wheel and pedals can compete in terms of design, build quality and performance.

Overall, this is an extremely well-rounded sim racing setup that you won’t need to update for a very long time.

The Wheelbase

Asetek Invicta 27Nm direct drive wheel base

The Asetek Invicta direct drive wheel base is one of the very best around. It offers incredible performance at a great price point, which allows it to fit perfectly into our $5000 sim rig build.

Why choose the Asetek Invicta wheel base?

I chose the Asetek Invicta wheel base for a simple reason. It offers incredible force feedback performance at a great price point, unrivaled by other sim racing brands.

Asetek has pulled out all of the stops with this relatively new wheel base. The force feedback performance is incredibly smooth while hitting incredible levels of power.

I rarely run my the Invicta wheel base anywhere close to its peak torque. Instead, I opt for between 15-20Nm depending on the sim racing title. But even when you turn everything up to 11, the force feedback remains smooth and incredibly detailed.

Competitors and other options

As mentioned earlier, there is very little competition from other brands at this extreme end of high-performance wheel bases.

One of the most popular sim racing brands, Fanatec, peaks at 25Nm of torque with its DD2. Simucube really does compete with its Ultimate wheel base, which is capable of a whopping 32Nm of peak torque.

Why not a Simucube or Fanatec DD2 wheel base?

The reason I didn’t choose either the Fanatec DD2 or Simucube 2 Ultimate is different for both products. The Asetek Invicta, in my opinion, is a more well-rounded wheel base capable of better force feedback than the Fanatec DD2.

I didn’t choose the Simucube 2 Ultimate because of the price. The Ultimate costs an extra $1000 compared to the Asetek Invicta, which is over $2700.

While the Simucube 2 Ultimate offers the absolute best in terms of performance, the Invicate is really not too different. When you factor in the $1000 price difference, the Asetek Invicta’s wheel base is a no-brainer.

Asetek Invicta Compatibility

The main downside of the Asetek product range as a whole is its limited compatibility with consoles. The Asetek Invicta wheel base is only PC compatible. However, thanks to the Invicta quick release, it is widely compatible with a wide range of other sim racing brands.

The quick release

Asetek Invicta quick release

Talking of the quick release, Asetek revealed its own quick release to allow its wheel bases to be used with steering wheels from other brands. This addition to the Asetek lineup really expands the use of its wheel bases.

With only one steering wheel currently available, not everyone will want to use an Asetek. If you already have a collection of steering wheels from other brands, you may have previously ruled out an Asetek wheel base.

The quick release changes all of this, now allowing you to