Fanatec’s New Sim Racing Cockpit Has A Genius Cable Management Solution

If you’ve built a sim rig, you know cable management can be a pain. By the nature of these big, sturdy metal beasts, there are not many places for your cables to go and you certainly don’t want them dangling in and around your feet. An ugly option is to cable tie them to the frame, but now Fanatec might have the best solution of them all.

This is its new CSL Cockpit, which thanks to hollow aluminium tubing, allows you to feed the cables for your wheelbase, pedals and other hardware directly through the rig itself. It’s both a neat and visually appealing way to solve it.

That may throw up some concerns as to the rigidity of the rig - after all, less metal would naturally mean it’s less sturdy in theory - and you may spot the CSL cockpit isn’t a traditional industrial-looking aluminium profile setup.

Despite that, Fanatec claims the rig can support direct drive wheels with up to 25Nm of peak torque. No surprise there, as the most powerful it offers itself - the DD2 - offers that amount of power.

The German sim racing hardware manufacturer says that’s possible thanks to using a side mounting solution, which will allow you to hard-mount the wheelbase on either side rather than underneath as is often the case on mid-range sim rigs. It’s worth noting this has been designed especially for Fanatec’s wheelbases which support side mounting, so it’s worth checking compatibility with your own setup first if you use another brand of hardware.

For the frame itself, Fanatec is charging €399.95/$399.95. A seat isn't included, though the manufacturer will sell you a matching, branded CSL one for €399.95/$399.95. You can also buy a shifter mount (€39.95/$39.95) and a monitor mount (€119.95/$119.95) separately. All are available for order now.

It’s worth noting for those of us in the UK, Fanatec will charge us the euros price before tax - and you’ll need to pay 20 per cent VAT upon your parcel arriving in the country. Go all-in, and it’d work out to about £630 for the full setup before shipping costs.