Asetek Initium Sim Racing Wheel Review – THE ULTIMATE SIM RACING KIT

If, like me, you are familiar with the PC building world, you might have read the title and been rather confused why the people who made almost all closed loop watercoolers is here with a genuinely amazing sim racing kit – I was at first – but it turns out they’ve been doing this for a while, and have been doing it amazingly well. This is their latest setup, the Initium, and it is both amazing right out the box, and amazingly upgradable in a way that doesn’t feel like they are nickel and dime-ing you. Let’s take a look and you’ll see what I mean. 

Let’s start with a brief tour. This is a three piece bundle, where you get the direct drive wheelbase, the stock steering wheel, and the pedal set. The wheelbase is the star of the show, with the highlights there being the 5.5Nm of maximum direct drive force from the built in servo motor, which can be upped to a whopping 8Nm with the higher rated power supply, and the 14 bit encoder giving 16384 point precision on the wheel’s position – or one point per 0.022 degrees of rotation! The wheelbase comes with a clamp mount and the basic 96 watt power supply, and has Asetek’s quick release for the wheel. On the back you have the power button, along with the DC in connector, the USB C port to connect to your PC, and a five port USB C hub for accessories – like the pedals. The wheel itself is a full round style with the Asetek quick release connection on the back, and offers you a whopping 21 total inputs – that’s two magnetically latching shifter paddles, two rotary encoders, four illuminated buttons, and the usual D pad and ABXY style buttons – and a couple more too. You’ve also got a rev counter LED strip which are actually aRGB for a crazy level of customisation depending on your preferences. As for the pedals, you get the base configuration out of the box – that being a standard spring for both the accelerator and brake pedals, and no clutch pedal. They connect over USB C to the wheelbase, and both use hall effect sensors right out the box. The brake is two-stage, which is nice, and you can set them to cockpit mode if you want them more upright.

Now is a good time to talk about the upgrades. The pedals have the most options here, with the most obvious one being adding the pretty obviously missing clutch pedal. That is 33 euros, which kind of begs the question of why that isn’t included in the first place, but at least it’s readily available. The more surprising updates though include spring upgrades for both the clutch and accelerator pedal if you want a better feel and more control, and for the brake? Damn you are set up well. You have the option to upgrade to a load cell for 100 euros, or a hydraulic master cylinder with a pressure sensor for 277 euros. That’s a lot of cash, but for a hydro brake? That’s pretty sweet that you have the option! The wheelbase’s optional power supply is 75 euros, and after using the wheelbase as stock, I can’t exactly work out why you’d want more than the 5.5 newton metres this can offer – this already feels snap-your-wrists strong, so I can’t imagine what 8 newton metres would do. And when it comes to the wheel, this one doesn’t have any upgrades, but you can pick from Asetek’s selection of button boxes and wheel handles. Want a formula style wheel? They’ve got that for you. Want a flat-bottomed wheel? Just swap the grips! All but Asetek’s screen-on-wheel options are fair game here. Oh, and if you’d rather use a real wheel, or something from another manufacturer? Just grab their universal adapter. That’s pretty great!

The setup for this is beautifully simple. Screw the clamp to the wheelbase, plug the pedals in, connect the PSU and system cable, and attach the wheel. That’s it. To be fair, attaching the wheel kinda sucks and took multiple attempts and a worrying amount of force for it to actually attach, but otherwise? It’s seamless. You’ll want to install Asetek’s RaceBox software to do any configurations and control you might want – which includes really detailed force feedback controls. You can toggle the force between 3 and 5.5 newton metres (it defaults to 4.5nm), change the steering range between 180 degrees and 1890 (that’s five and a quarter full rotations), with the default being 540 degrees, and a load more settings. There are also safety settings, namely the automatic centering strength, safe mode and hands-off detection. You can remap all the buttons and the LEDs on the wheel, and calibrate the pedals. It’s really impressive.

As for actually using it… Well that’s an amazing experience. As someone with a healthy amount of experience using gear/belt driven wheels like the G923 I’ve been using for a few years now, this is a very clear and marked improvement – not just in the amount of force available, but the quality. The force feedback you get is more granular, and feels less like a blender strapped to your desk and more like what a wheel in a drift car actually feels like. The added force definitely makes it feel more realistic – having to force your way around a corner in an F1 car (which do actually have power steering!) gives a weighty and realistic feel. And my god when you start to lose the back end and the wheel starts getting lighter… to actually feel that and be able to react to it as you would in a real car is just incredible. It’s an amazing feeling. I do enjoy drifting in Assetto Corsa, and besides an external handbrake, this is perfect. Actually a clutch pedal to clutch kick would be great. But otherwise this is a phenomenal experience. The weight on the wheel, the control the pedals actually allow for – the ability to modulate the throttle and even the brake is just incredible. The brake pedal’s dual stage means the first 57 percent or so is pretty easy, but the last 43 percent takes a lot of force. If you are able to rest your right heel on the base and sort of brace against your left foot when braking it works pretty well, and of course if this is strapped to a sim rig, you’ll be all sorted on that front.

Genuinely, I can’t describe adequately just how much of a step up this set is compared to the G923. The G923 is between £250 and £289 right now, while this bundle is more like £620 (from Asetek, there is one seller who has one in stock at £530 instead), but this is easily twice as good – more actually. The fact this is also so upgradable is actually really nice, it means you can buy this bundle at a more affordable price point, and then when you are ready for more – a load cell brake pedal, a nicer pedal feel on the throttle, more force from the wheel and a formula style wheel – all of that can be added later, instead of needing to replace what you already have. It can grow with your interest, without needing to be replaced, and I actually really like that. The only complaints I have are that I really would like the obviously missing clutch pedal included – even if that means adding £30 to the price tag, that feels a little too cheap for me – and that the buttons on the wheel (namely the d-pad and ABXY buttons) feel stiff and almost broken, but it’s hard to complain about that when you can literally replace the entire wheel! Besides that, well I think it’s clear I really like this thing, and am more than happy to recommend it for those that are looking to step up in their sim racing experience. It feels like a great entry point to a truly excellent experience. It is worth noting that this is the first direct drive wheel I’ve reviewed (not used), and options from the likes of Fanatec do exist at this sort of price point, although they don’t seem to be as upgradable – for example the included pedal box is two pedal only and doesn’t seem to have a way to add the third pedal in after the fact. In short, I’m really happy with this bundle, so much so that I’m designing my own sim rig cockpit, and if you’re interested in seeing that, make sure you are subscribed! 

Oh, one final thing, I couldn’t get Dirt Rally 2.0 to give me any force feedback – no settings I tried worked – which is a shame because that is one of my favourite games. Having done some Googling it looks like this isn’t a rare issue on any wheel, let alone this one, so I’ll keep trying, but if anyone has any suggestions I’d love to hear them in the comments below, along with your thoughts on this Asetek Initium bundle. What do you think of the upgradability? Initially it rubbed me the wrong way but after using it I’ve definitely warmed to the idea, but I’d love to hear what you think in the comments below!