Buy the Logitech G RS50. That is the answer for roughly eight out of ten people typing this search into a phone at 11pm, and I’ll spend the rest of this article explaining why the 3 Nm and roughly $400 separating these two bases do not buy what the spec sheet implies they buy.

The Logitech G PRO Racing Wheel is still a good piece of hardware. It was Logitech’s first real direct drive product, it launched in late 2022 at $999 for base and rim, and for a couple of years it was the only sensible console-friendly direct drive option that didn’t come with Fanatec’s shipping roulette. But the RS50 arrived in late 2025 at around $600 with the RS Round Wheel bundled, and it runs the same TRUEFORCE force feedback, accepts the same rims, and puts down enough torque that most people will turn it down anyway. The PRO now makes sense for a narrow slice of buyers, and I’ll tell you exactly who they are.

What you’re actually comparing

Both are Logitech direct drive bases, both come in a PlayStation/PC flavor and an Xbox/PC flavor (pick carefully, they don’t cross over), and both use Logitech’s TRUEFORCE system, which pulls audio and physics data straight from supported games to add high-frequency engine and road texture on top of the normal force feedback signal. If you’ve felt TRUEFORCE on a G923 you’ve felt a watered-down version. On a direct drive motor it becomes something genuinely different.

The headline numbers:

That table looks like a clear win for the PRO if you read it the way spec sheets want you to read it. Now the part that matters.

The torque argument is mostly nonsense

Eleven Nm sounds serious next to 8 Nm. In practice, here’s how my PRO has actually been set for most of the time I’ve owned it: G HUB strength around 60 to 70 percent, and in iRacing the in-sim strength was landing somewhere around 30 to 40 Nm-equivalent on the auto-scaling, which means the base was rarely asked for more than 7 or so Nm in the corners. I run full torque for maybe two things: dragging a GT3 car over the curbs at Sebring turn 17 to feel the whole car skip, and the occasional masochistic session in an rF2 open-wheeler with no power steering.

For everyone else, torque above 8 Nm is a spec you pay for and then dial away because your forearms hurt after 40 minutes. A 2-hour Le Mans Ultimate stint at Spa with the PRO at 100 percent is an exercise regime, not a race. Most people with the PRO end up somewhere in the 6 to 8 Nm effective range, which is exactly where the RS50 tops out. And the RS50 at 100 percent still has more headroom than any belt-drive wheel that ever existed, including the Fanatec CSL Elite and Thrustmaster T300 that a lot of you are upgrading from.

Where the extra headroom genuinely matters is detail at low forces, not peak strength. A motor running well below its ceiling has more resolution to spare for small oscillations, so in theory the PRO at 60 percent should feel more detailed than the RS50 at 90 percent. In practice, side by side on the same rig, on the same lap of the Porsche 992 Cup around Road Atlanta in iRacing, the difference is small enough that I had to concentrate to find it. The PRO’s fine tire scrub texture through the esses is a hair crisper. Lock-to-lock catch on a snap in turn 12 is a hair faster. A hair. Not $400.

Where the PRO actually wins

I promised you the narrow slice, so here it is.

The OLED display and on-base settings are a bigger deal on console than PC people appreciate. On PC you have G HUB and don’t care. On a PlayStation or Xbox, the PRO lets you adjust strength, TRUEFORCE level, damper, rotation and filter without leaving the game, and you can save profiles per title. The RS50 on console is more reliant on the in-game settings and whatever Logitech exposes through the wheel buttons, which is workable but clunkier. If you’re a Gran Turismo 7 player who swaps between Gr.3 and road cars and likes to tweak, this is a real convenience, not a gimmick.

The included rim is also notably better. The PRO rim has dual clutch paddles (useful for actual bite-point launches in ACC and iRacing, and useful again as an analog axis for other things), magnetic shifter paddles with a hard, satisfying click, and a better grip material. The RS Round Wheel is fine, and I mean fine in the literal sense, but the paddles are quieter and less crisp, and you don’t get the clutch paddles. If you’re going to buy a nicer rim later anyway, this washes out. If you’re planning to run the bundle as-is for years, the PRO rim is a legitimate part of the price gap.

And the PRO base is heavier and stiffer. On a hard-mounted aluminum profile rig that means nothing. On a desk it means the base itself is less likely to be the thing that flexes. More on desks in a moment, because that is where most direct drive dreams go to die.

That’s the list. Console tweakers, people who will never buy a second rim, and people who really do want to run 10 Nm regularly. Everyone else, the RS50.

Living with each one

The PRO unboxing is heavy. The base is around 7 kg with the rim, the power brick is a slab that you will spend ten minutes finding a home for, and the integrated clamp mechanism is a knurled screw setup that works but takes patience to seat on a thick desk. Once clamped it is rock solid, which is more than I can say for most bolt-on clamps. First-hour setup on PC is G HUB, which is Logitech’s software and therefore ranges from “fine” to “why did it forget my profile again.” Firmware updates have historically been slow to arrive but usually fix what they claim to fix.

Quirks after a week: the PRO can develop a faint grinding or ticking through the motor when centering slowly with strength cranked, which Logitech says is normal cogging behavior and which a lot of owners find unsettling the first time. It goes away once you’re moving. The fan is audible in a quiet room between sessions. The quick release is proprietary, which was the big gripe for the first two years of the product’s life because there were no other rims to put on it.

The RS50 is a lighter, smaller box with a more conventional look, and the whole thing feels designed by people who had read the PRO’s complaints. Setup is quicker. The clamp is decent, not PRO-level, and if your desk lip is thin you’ll want to add a shim. The base runs quieter. Firmware and software are the same G HUB experience, for better or worse. After a week the thing I noticed most was that I stopped noticing it, which is the highest compliment I can pay to a wheel base.

The one RS50 gripe that comes up repeatedly, and that I agree with, is that the default damping and filtering feel a bit rubbery out of the box. Drop the damper down and lift the TRUEFORCE level and it sharpens right up. Settings I’d start with on either base, for iRacing: strength on the base at 100 percent for the RS50 or around 70 for the PRO, TRUEFORCE audio effects around 40 to 50, damper 0 to 10, filter as low as you can stand before the wheel gets grainy, in-sim wheel force set to whatever gives you a peak just below clipping in the F meter. Rotation: 900 degrees for road cars and let the game clamp it for open-wheelers, both bases handle soft lock correctly in the sims that support it.

The rim situation changed everything

The best thing Logitech did with the RS launch, and the thing that quietly reshuffles this whole comparison, is that the new RS rims mount to the PRO base and the PRO rim mounts to the RS50. Logitech’s compatibility list confirms both directions. So the RS50 isn’t a dead-end budget product with one rim, and the PRO isn’t stuck with a single round wheel anymore.

That means the rational build for a new buyer is RS50 base, then spend the money you saved on a better rim or better pedals instead of on torque you’ll turn down. Which brings up the thing that actually improves lap times.

Pedals matter more than any of this

If your budget is around $1,000 and you’re choosing between the PRO bundle with no pedals and the RS50 bundle plus a set of load cell pedals, this isn’t close. Buy the RS50 and the pedals.

Logitech’s RS Pedals come in around $100 in Hall-effect form and can be upgraded to a load cell brake with a separately sold kit. Logitech’s PRO Racing Pedals sit around $350 and come with a load cell brake out of the box, plus a swappable elastomer stack that lets you tune the pedal feel. The PRO pedals are genuinely excellent and I’d recommend them over most third-party options in the same bracket. But the RS Pedals with the load cell kit are the bargain of the whole lineup.

Anyone who has switched from a potentiometer brake to a load cell will tell you it’s the single biggest consistency gain in sim racing. Bigger than direct drive. You brake by pressure, not by travel, and your foot learns pressure much faster. If you’re still on G29 or G923 pedals, sort that out before you worry about 8 Nm versus 11.

Desk flex will ruin either one

I’ve watched people buy a $999 wheel base and bolt it to a $60 IKEA desk and then post that direct drive feels “muddy.” It’s not the wheel. Even 8 Nm of properly detailed force feedback will make a flat-pack desk walk across the floor, and every bit of flex in the mount is detail you’re paying for and not receiving.

The PRO’s mass and stiffer clamp help a little here. The RS50 on a flimsy desk will feel worse than the RS50 on a proper wheel stand or aluminum profile rig by a wider margin than the difference between the RS50 and PRO on identical mounts. If you’re desk-bound and can’t change that, the PRO is the slightly more forgiving choice. If you’re planning to buy a rig or stand, put your $400 there instead. A Next Level Racing Wheel Stand 2.0 or an entry-level 8020 cockpit will do more for your driving than the torque bump.

What people argue about

On r/simracing the recurring PRO complaints are the price (still), the wheel’s weight making the rotation feel slightly less lively than a Moza R9 or Simucube at the same effective torque, and Logitech being slow to ship rims until the RS line landed. The RS50 threads are mostly “is 8 Nm enough” (yes) and “should I have waited for this instead of buying a PRO last year” (probably, sorry). The Logitech G Discord has its share of G HUB grumbling, and a small but loud contingent who insist TRUEFORCE is a gimmick. I disagree with them. It’s an effect layer, and you can turn it down, but on a direct drive motor it adds engine and curb texture that most other bases just don’t have without heavy tuning.

The Moza comparison comes up constantly because the Moza R9 undercuts the PRO on price and matches it on torque. It’s a fair point on PC. On console it isn’t, because Moza’s console support is limited, and that’s why the Logitech question exists in the first place. The PRO and RS50 are, along with Fanatec, your main direct drive options if you’re on a PlayStation or Xbox and don’t want to deal with Fanatec’s support history. Thrustmaster’s T818 is PC-only. That console compatibility is what you’re actually paying Logitech for, on either base, and the RS50 delivers it for a lot less.

FAQ

Is 8 Nm enough for iRacing and ACC? Yes, comfortably. Most iRacing drivers run their bases in the 5 to 8 Nm effective range regardless of what the hardware can do, because anything above that gets tiring across a full stint and doesn’t make you faster. ACC’s force feedback is dense and detailed and gets on well with the RS50 at 90 to 100 percent strength.

Can I use the G PRO rim on the RS50, or an RS rim on the PRO? Logitech lists cross-compatibility between the PRO and RS bases and their rims, so you can put the PRO round wheel on an RS50 base and vice versa. Check the current compatibility page before ordering a rim specifically for the swap, since Logitech has updated the list as products launched.

Does the PRO Racing Wheel work with both PlayStation and Xbox? No. There are two separate versions of both the PRO and RS50, one for PlayStation plus PC and one for Xbox plus PC. Buy the wrong one and you have a PC-only wheel. This is the most common expensive mistake with Logitech direct drive.

Buy this if, check this before you order

Buy the Logitech G RS50 if you’re on PC or console, you’re coming from a belt-drive wheel or a G923, you have a budget around $600 to $1,000, and you haven’t yet sorted out a load cell brake or a stiff mount. Put the difference into pedals first and a stand second.

Buy the Logitech G PRO Racing Wheel if you’re a console player who genuinely uses on-wheel tuning between sessions, you want the better rim and don’t intend to buy another, you’re hard-mounted and actually plan to run 9 to 11 Nm regularly, or you find one heavily discounted to within $150 of the RS50 bundle. At that gap the PRO’s rim and display are worth it. At the full $400 gap, they’re not.

Before you click buy on either, confirm three things: the platform version matches your console, your desk or rig can take a clamp on a lip at least an inch thick without flexing (grab the edge and push hard, if it moves, so will your force feedback), and you’ve priced in pedals, because the bundle price on both bases includes a rim and nothing to brake with.