SCIENCE & TECH: Turtle Beach Velocityone Race KD3 wheel review: simply the best budget direct drive wheel on the market

Turtle Beach Velocityone Race KD3: One-minute review

Previously a headset specialist, Turtle Beach has expanded into the more distant shores of sim peripherals lately and has had some especially impressive first forays into flight sim gear. The original VelocityOne direct drive bundle didn’t stick the landing quite as well over in the sim racing space, but this revised KD3 version addresses a lot of user feedback, and the result is simply our favourite budget-end direct drive bundle.

Both the wheelbase and pedals are equally at home on a desktop setup or installed on a racing seat, which is a smart move at this price point since the split of users who race one way or the other is far more even than at a higher price. Although there’s some plastic present on both the base of the pedals and the framework of the wheel, this doesn’t detract from what’s a solid and detailed driving sensation.

Torque weenies will be quick to point out the low 3.2Nm output from Turtle Beach’s direct drive motor, but in reality, it doesn’t feel weak to drive. There’s enough muscle here to make a car feel weighty, and to articulate a rear-end slip well enough for you to react to it.

Conversely, the wheel is the weak point of the whole bundle. The buttons are uninspiring and feel cheap to press, and while the magnetic shifters feel great, the visual design isn’t going to turn many heads.

But Turtle Beach has a plan: a rather excellent FR-X formula-style wheel unit, sold separately for $225 / £189. If you buy that wheel plus the base bundle, you’re still in competitive pricing territory with the Thrustmaster T598, Moza R3, and Nacon Revosim, and you’ll have arguably the best wheel out of the lot.

One question mark to consider before purchasing is that, since Turtle Beach is just getting started in the sim racing space, the product ecosystem is limited at present. There’s nothing to upgrade to higher up the pricing ladder, so if you wanted to swap in a better set of pedals one day, or affix that FR-X wheel to a motor with a higher torque output, you’re banking on Turtle Beach continuing to expand its range of gear. With that said, at this price, it’s well worth the gamble.

Turtle Beach Velocityone Race KD3: Price and availability

• List price: $449.99 / £329.99 (around AU$690)
• Cheaper than both the Nacon Revosim and Thrustmaster T598
• Worth factoring in the $225 / £189 FR-X wheel upgrade

Truthfully, the price is what makes this bundle as exciting as it is. There’s been a lot of activity in and around the $500 / £500 direct drive bundle mark in 2025, but the build quality, sensation, and design of this one make it the best value of all. Turtle Beach has undercut Nacon’s Revosim, and the Thrustmaster T598 – two bundles that offer extraordinary value in their own right.

The tradeoffs to hit this pricing aren’t obvious or troublesome, either – a basic wheel with a mostly plastic construction, and a plastic pedal base. Most value-conscious sim racers can live with that in order to enjoy the considerable benefits.

The FR-X wheel is the jewel in Turtle Beach’s nascent ecosystem, and it’s a borderline-mandatory upgrade to this bundle, which unlocks mechanical switches, a great input layout, and a much more premium look and feel. It’s priced at $224.99 / £189.99, and you should add that amount to the price of this bundle unless $399.99 / £329.99 is the hard limit of your budget.

Turtle Beach Velocityone Race KD3: Specs

Turtle Beach Velocityone Race KD3: Design and features

• Solid, adjustable pedals
• A lot of detail from just 3.2Nm
• Well-designed for desktop use, suitable for sim rigs too

Turtle Beach has clearly been paying attention to the feedback it garnered when it brought the first VelocityOne bundle to the sim racing market. This newest iteration looks more sophisticated and takes more of its design cues from the world of motorsport than gaming, allowing it to sit flush against the likes of Fanatec and Moza’s grown-up, serious-looking wheel bundles.

I’m a particular fan of the compact, no-nonsense motor design. It’s surprisingly small and neat, with a killswitch at the top and some additional buttons on the right-hand side, which add inputs for the three central buttons on an Xbox Wireless Controller.

The wheel mounts to the motor via a sturdy quick-release design, which doesn’t require any screwdrivers. Just pull the quick-release mechanism back towards you, then pull the wheel off. It feels secure and tight when the wheel’s affixed, and allows you to swap between two different wheel models easily – more on that below.

The supplied wheel is the weakest element of the bundle, but by no means is it unfit for purpose. It’s simply that there’s a plasticky feel to the upper and lower portions of the wheel, north and south of the texturized grips, and a rather basic finish quality. There are 20 total inputs to assign, the majority being simple face buttons, but there are two scroll wheels, reachable with the thumb while driving, for mapping to functions like traction control or engine mappings.

Is it a thing of beauty? Not particularly. But it deserves credit for a sensible ergonomic button layout, and for its size. Not many wheels at this end of the price bracket are full-size, and when you’re driving in titles that really benefit from a round wheel like EA Sports WRC, it’s a real benefit to have that full-size maneuverability.

There’s a two-pedal base supplied with this bundle, and although the brake doesn’t feature a load cell design with different elastomers that can be swapped in and out manually, you can still adjust the tension by twisting the spring housing.

Typically, you find that budget-end direct drive bundles offer less stamping resistance, since it’s the more experienced and serious sim racers who want the all-out leg workout of a GT car’s brake pedal resistance, and so it proves here. For my personal driving style, I found I was able to dial in enough tension in order to apply plenty of braking and find the sweet spot just before locking up. That’s the most important aspect. If you want your sim racing setup to feel exactly like a GT car, you’ll need a stiffer brake. If you just care about lapping quickly and consistently, Turtle Beach’s design works very well.

The plastic base that houses the pedals is another concession to this bundle hitting an affordable price point, and when compared to Thrustmaster’s very sturdy, all-metal pedal base construction for the T598, it does look and feel cheaper and offers less customization. However, it stays put admirably well on a variety of floor surfaces, making it pretty ideal if you prefer to race at your desktop rather than in a sim rig.

In fact, while both the pedals and wheelbase can be easily mounted to a racing seat, it’s during desktop use where their practical and sensible design really shines through. Take the desktop mounting clamp, for example: this is often an aspect of affordable direct drive bundles that feels like an afterthought, but here, one simple but sturdy part slots into the underside of the motor and lets you screw it into place, with minimal chances of your legs knocking into it. Simple as that.

It’s definitely worth noting here that while the supplied wheel feels quite basic, for $224.99 / £189.99, the FR-X wheel is an absurdly well-put-together formula-style wheel with loads of luxurious touches, and it really elevates the whole experience. See our boxout for more details on it.

Turtle Beach Velocityone Race KD3: Performance

• More torque than you’d expect
• A sturdy and detailed driving experience
• Comfortable layout

Sim racers love to talk… well, torque. The Nm output of a direct drive wheelbase is often cited as a crucial spec when someone’s weighing up their options, and on those terms, the 3.2Nm on offer from this model seems meager.

However, using torque output as a measure of how detailed or immersive a wheelbase can be is simply too reductive. The Thrustmaster T598, for example, has 5Nm on paper, but it’s capable of 100% torque overshoot and, in real terms, feels as powerful and resistant as any wheel I’ve tested.

It’s a similar story with this wheelbase. While it isn’t so powerful that I feared for my thumbs when I crashed, it’s got more than enough torque to articulate subtle weight transfer, traction loss, road rumble, and brake lockups. And yes, when you crash, it feels like you’re crashing.

If it lacks anywhere, it’s in how quickly it delivers those sensations. At times, particularly when racing lightweight vehicles like F1 25’s F1 cars or open wheelers in Automobilista 2, the front end feeling is slightly dull and imprecise. However, in road cars and GT vehicles that you’d find in Assetto Corsa Competizione or Assetto Corsa Evo, I noticed this far less.

In the end, that slightly dull delivery is another concession to price. Just like the stamping force on the brake, it takes you marginally out of the immersion of controlling a real vehicle, but has little to no impact on your lap times.

Elsewhere in performance terms, I love the spacing of the pedals, the size of the round wheel, and the articulation of the large aluminum magnetic shifters. That lets me compete in longer races without feeling fatigued, and having all the face buttons arranged within easy reach of my thumbs helps a lot, too.

Should I buy the Turtle Beach Velocityone Race KD3?

Buy it if…

Don’t buy it if…

Turtle Beach Velocityone Race KD3: Also consider

If the Turtle Beach Velocityone Race KD3 doesn’t bring you out of your shell, try these similar alternatives.

How I tested the Turtle Beach Velocityone Race KD3

• Tested in F1 24, F1 25, Rennsport, ACC, and AC Evo
• One week of testing on a desktop
• Both the bundled KD3 wheel and FR-X wheel tested

Force feedback implementation and input schemes can vary from one title to another, so my testing process when a new bundle shows up at the door always involves a variety of games. And, indeed, a variety of vehicle types within them.

For the past week, I’ve been hotlapping in F1 24 and F1 25, obsessing over tire temps in Rennsport, whittling down the odd hundredth from my PBs in Assetto Corsa Competizione, and trying to ignore the low frame rates in Assetto Corsa Evo. In all titles, the KD3 feels powerful and just agile enough to convey the key info about the platform. Button mappings and default axis values all feel sensible, too.

Read more about how we test

First reviewed October 2025