PXN VD6 Direct Drive Racing Wheel Bundle Review

TweakTown Rating: 92%

Our Verdict

PXN is taking aim at the likes of MOZA with the VD6 Direct Drive Bundle, adding another serious contender in the entry-level space.

Pros

• Great value
• Quick-release system
• Pedals including elastomer
• Good feedback
• Software is easy to use

Cons

• No console support
• MOZA dominates the market
• Smaller ecosystem

Should you buy it?

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Buy at Amazon for $439 USD

Buy at Amazon for £573.87

Introduction, Specifications, and Pricing

I recently reviewed the PXN V10 Ultra Direct Drive bundle; it was a low-cost, great-value entry-level direct drive bundle for casual racers keen to dip a toe into sim racing. Now, PXN has returned with the next step up, so to speak, with the PXN VD6 Direct Drive Bundle. On sale for $360 (down from $379 at the time of writing), this bundle packs 6Nm of constant torque and a 24-bit encoder for enhanced accuracy.

Where the V10 Ultra included both Xbox and PlayStation compatibility, the VD6 is purely a PC focused wheel. Here then, we have a rather direct competitor for the MOZA R5 bundle, with an RRP of $439, and with Christmas approaching, it is currently available for $399. Given that only $39 separates the two in holiday sales, would it be worth saving the extra and going with the PXN VD6?

Today, I will be reviewing this bundle to see what the VD6 brings to the party, whether the cost savings are worth it, and whether it is really a true competitor to the MOZA R5.

Best Deals: PXN VD6 Direct Drive Racing Wheel Bundle

	Today	7 days ago	30 days ago
	$439 USD	$439 USD	$439 USD	Buy
	$439 USD	$439 USD	$439 USD	Buy
	£573.87	£573.87	£579.38	Buy
	$439 USD	$439 USD	$439 USD	Buy
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Unboxing the PXN VD6 Direct Drive Bundle 1

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PXN continues their excellent and informative packaging with the VD6; full colour printing covers the front and back of the box, showing the main components of the bundle. The top right indicates compatibility, this time limited to just PC.

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One side of the box lists the contents beneath a picture of the wheel and wheelbase.

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Finally, on the other side of the packaging, features are listed with the box contents shown on the right-hand side.

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Unboxing is a familiar process given my recent experience with the V10 Ultra. Here, the top includes the wheel rim, the instruction manual, and two desk-mounting clamps.

Further Racing Reading – Our Latest Reviews

• PXN CB1 Racing Simulator Control Box Review
• PXN V10 Ultra Direct Drive Sim Racing Bundle Review
• Next Level Racing GTRacer 2.0 Sim Racing Cockpit Review

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The bottom layer holds the wheelbase, pedals, and the accessory box. Again, everything is well packaged and protected for transit and storage.

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PXN has upped its game from the V10 Ultra, with the VD6 including the W AS steering wheel. Whereas the PXN V10 Ultra featured a 270mm/11" D-Shaped rim, here the rim is fully round. The dimensions are slightly different at 280mm/11", and this rim is clad in microfiber leather. The outer rim features a red center stripe to the top, with red stitching around the top and bottom halves.

As I mentioned previously with the V10 Ultra, the stitching termination isn't the best; it just looks a little messy and could maybe be a little more refined, but it is perfectly acceptable given the price they are asking. Overall, the wheel feels nice and comfy in your hands, and the microfiber leather is split between smooth on the top and bottom, with an indented pattern to the center, providing a little extra grip in the most important areas.

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The W AS steering wheel weighs in at 1050g and includes 19 buttons on the aluminum alloy front plate, with two rotary encoders featuring depressible buttons. The rotary thumb wheels are made of plastic, but feature good resistance to prevent accidental activation, while button activation on the rotaries is very positive. Some of the buttons are domed, while others feature a depression in the center that provides a recess for your finger. Button clicks are mostly smooth and firm; however, in their resting position, there is a slight rattle when you shake the wheel due to tolerances in the button housings for tension.

The D-Pad is a little squishy, but it shouldn't take away from the rest of the wheel. Button layout and accessibility are excellent, with everything easily within reach. In the center is an 11-segment RGB LED rev strip, something absent from the V10 Ultra. All buttons are pre-labeled with text printed to the front, but no backlighting is included.

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Spinning the wheel over, the back features full-aluminum alloy construction for the paddles and a D1-style quick-release mechanism. This quick-release style is the most popular on the market, and it means the wheel rim is interchangeable with other wheel bases that use the same design; however, PXN states that the wheel is only compatible with other PXN direct-drive bases. Below the quick release is a USB-C port for force-pairing with the wheel base.

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The included gear paddles are magnetic, with snappy and positive clicks when pulled. There is some resonance on release, and no padding to numb the noise; however, they aren't the loudest paddles I have had experience with by any means. Linear paddles feature for the clutch, with nice, strong resistance to these, and smooth operation. Hall Effect sensors are used throughout, but none of the paddles have any adjustment.

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Turning my attention to the wheelbase itself, the PXN VD6 offers 6 Nm of constant torque with a peak of 7 Nm. Accuracy is delivered by a 24-bit magnetic encoder, and the VD6 includes intelligent cooling, with heat dissipated through the aluminum alloy housing, so no active cooling is employed. The base features a 20-pole low-inertia direct-drive motor and an aviation-grade conductive slip ring, with PXN implementing its Sense+ algorithm to enhance driving physics.

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On arrival, the front contact pads are protected with a sticker covering the shaft. The front also uses a rather nice design to the housing, reflecting the chequered effect of the packaging that PXN uses.

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Removing the shipping sticker reveals the front contact pads. The pads here are static, as we see on other wheel bases, with spring-loaded pins on the wheel side of the connection.

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Both sides of the VD6 housing include PXN branding and fins to help cool the base unit.

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The top of the wheel base is plain, with a red stripe from front to back.

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The bottom includes four threaded mounting holes for attaching the wheel base to either the included mounting plate or to your chassis directly. Spacing here is 43.5 x 78.4mm; given that these are static, and the base doesn't include slots for T-Nuts, you may have to use the included base plate to adapt mounting to a chassis.

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All connections are handled at the rear of the wheel base, and the back features the same pattern as the front of the housing.

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There are plenty of connection options at the rear, including a shifter, pedals, and extra components that connect via USB-C. An E-Stop port is included, along with a USB-A port, power, and a power button with an LED, completing the rear IO.

Unboxing the PXN VD6 Direct Drive Bundle 2

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PXN includes the same pedals as those with the V10 Ultra bundle, so I feel at risk of repeating myself, given I only wrote the V10 review a few days ago! PXN supplies the PD HM two-pedal set with the VD6, which is very similar to the MOZA SRP-Lite pedal set and others on the market. This implementation is becoming increasingly common, featuring all-metal construction, with the heel plate including mounting points to allow the pedals to be adjusted left to right or to accommodate a clutch pedal.

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PXN includes a 60-degree pedal slope for comfortable use, and, as with the V10 Ultra, the pedal plates themselves feature height and angle adjustment to really dial things in to where you want them to be.

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Both pedals use Hall Effect sensors, with different-strength springs to provide resistance.

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PXN once again includes an elastomer for the brake pedal, and you can see the cutouts in the pedal assembly for mounting. Installation is tool-less and only takes a couple of seconds. I said this was a great inclusion with the V10 Ultra, and I will repeat this here.

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Looking underneath the pedals, I noticed that, compared to the V10 Ultra, the RJ11 cable isn't pre-installed, so I will need to add it during installation. Mounting holes are again provided for attaching to a chassis, with non-slip rubber pads for carpet/hard floor use.

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Connection ports for the pedals to your wheel base or PC are included on the brake pedal.

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Our accessory kit includes everything we need to set up our wheel and pedals.

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Included here are the power supply and wall plug, USB and RJ11 cables, brake elastomer, and all required mounting hardware and tools to make installation really easy.

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The included PXN mounting clamp allows you to mount your wheel on a surface up to 70mm thick and adjust the wheel's angle relative to the surface. The mounting clamp can also be mounted to an aluminum chassis from the side, making it extremely versatile. All hardware to assemble the clamp is also included.

Installation & Software

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Unlike the V10 Ultra, the VD6 is a simple installation on the Trak Racer TR120S V2 chassis. The wheel base is secured using four M6 bolts in the universal mounting base plate, and the pedals are connected to the tray.

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Luckily, I already have the PXN Sim Racing software installed from the V10 Ultra review. If you are new to PXN software, though, the download and installation process is very simple and only takes a couple of minutes.

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With the PXN software running version 1.5.4, the first thing to check is the firmware version of the VD6 bundle. With a couple of clicks, the update began, and a few minutes later, everything was recognized and ready to explore.

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Jumping to the devices tab, the VD6 wheel base has two pages of tabs of options, basic, and advanced. Here, everything from the lock angle to FFB strength can be adjusted via a slider, with tool tips next to each segment for additional help if needed.

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Six additional settings are listed within the advanced tab. "Game Firction" needs an update to the spelling; I have already dropped PXN an email about it, so hopefully this will be resolved soon. The VD6 adds two options here over the V10 Ultra, I noticed, so the parameters are specific to each wheelbase, with only applicable options shown.

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Our PXN W AS steering wheel has a load of options to fiddle with, from button mapping to the LED rev lights and clutch paddle settings. PXN does, of course, allow you to save, import, and export presets for configurations and layouts, and the software is really easy to navigate, so it's not hard to find or know exactly where to look for a particular setting. The ability to adjust the brightness and structure of the rev LEDs is useful, and percentage/flash points are also available. As usual, clutch paddles can be set independently or as a combined axis, but there is no option for a button mode here, as there was with the V10 Ultra.

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Pedal settings also offer a range of adjustments, with curves and presets available to play with once again.

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The PXN software detects installed games and lets you load presets for each title; you can also launch games from here if required. If you don't have a DDU, you can use the Dashboard on a phone by scanning the QR Code.

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PXN shows upcoming events in the Arena tab of the software; always worth checking out if you are looking for races to enter!

Final Thoughts

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With everything set up and ready to go, I fired up Assetto Corsa via Content Manager and started adjusting my input settings in the settings menu. As expected, everything was detected as it should, and it was then time to jump on track.

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Throwing a Ferrari around Mugello was my first combo of the day, with plenty of other cars and circuit configurations participating over a few days of testing.

After putting in some track time, what are my final thoughts on the PXN VD6? First, the wheelbase itself.

Here, I soon found the base clipping, so the first change I made was to reduce the FFB strength in-game to around 80%, which cleared things up quite well. From then on, the driving was fairly smooth overall. What I prefer a wheel to feel like may not be what you prefer, so, as always, the software and in-game settings are vital for honing the feedback to your personal preferences. I, well, I like feeling the road surface, which the base fed back well, with hard bangs and clunks when I climb over a rumble strip, and the VD6 threw it at me the best it could, given the somewhat limited power it has to offer.

While overall the base is smooth, its response time felt just a little off, and I would just like it to be a bit quicker when something starts to go wrong on track, so I can respond as quickly as possible, but overall, it's not a bad experience by any stretch of the imagination. Throughout longer driving sessions, the base didn't get overly hot, and the overall experience was quiet. When the base is powered off, and you turn the shaft by hand, there is some detectable cogging, whereas in-game, it wasn't really noticeable. Here, then, the base gets a thumbs up from me, especially when I take the likes of the Logitech and Thrustmaster alternatives at this price point into account.

Next, the A WS steering wheel really is as good as you are going to get at the price point. It's well laid out and offers enough buttons to map everyday controls. Add in the encoders, TC, and ABS, which can be controlled on-the-fly or designated in SimHub for anything else you may want to control externally. Being 280mm, it is suitable for a wide range of ages and racing types, and so it should last you in the long term. Gear changes in-game were crisp, and the wheel was comfortable for use with and without gloves.

The RGB LED rev counter is crisp, with no light bleed, and isn't in your face when driving. It's a good inclusion, and it's well implemented here on the W AS steering wheel. The only thing to really pick up on, then, is that the buttons do rattle within their housing when going over rumble strips, as I mentioned earlier, and it's down to a lack of tension in the resting position. Stick on a pair of headphones, and the issue soon drifts into the background.

Finally, the pedals. I tried these with and without the elastomer fitted. For younger players, a softer pedal might be a welcome option, with the ability to quickly add the elastomer for older players and those wanting a stiffer pedal. Both with and without, again, at the price point, there isn't a lot bad to say about these pedals. Reaction time when I lifted off quickly was good, and, being all-metal construction, they should last for some considerable time. While there is no load cell, for an entry-level set of pedals, they tick all the boxes and allow adding a clutch as needed.

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Throughout this review, I have mentioned the PXN V10 Ultra, as I just finished that review, and it's nice to see what you get from PXN when you take the next step up the ladder. Here, though, it's the MOZA R5 that I should really be comparing the PXN VD6 to, and as I mentioned at the start, they are fairly evenly matched on paper and in price. Both offer a similar experience, good build quality, very similar pedals, and, between them, two good entry-level steering wheels that both utilize the best quick-release system on the market. Is it a tie? Well, almost, but between the two, the MOZA R5, for me at least, is the winner.

Now hold on, before you rush out to grab the MOZA bundle, let me explain. The MOZA R5 does offer better feedback, which can, again, be subjective, but MOZA offers a wider ecosystem, and that is the primary reason I would pick the R5 over the PXN VD6 bundle. In terms of longevity and upgrade paths, PXN at this time simply can't match what MOZA is putting out there.

Does that mean you should discount the PXN VD6 then? No, absolutely not at all.

While MOZA offers a bigger ecosystem, what if you don't need such an extensive range of add-ons? I mean, PXN does offer some add-ons, including a shifter, clutch, button box, and a few other items, should you want to build out your setup a little more. The likes of MOZA, Thrustmaster, and Logitech now have a target on their backs in the entry-level direct-drive or belt/gear-driven wheel space.

You see, PXN has done a great job with the VD6, and at this price, it's really going to make this segment of the market more competitive. If PXN could add console support for PlayStation, they would really have a killer product on their hands. Despite lacking console support, is the PXN VD6 one of the best, if not the best, entry-level wheel set available? Well, the verdict is easy: yes, it's certainly worth considering given the price, build quality, and the experience it offers.