Getting back into Sim Racing and seeking advice on hardware

Hello all! Glad to have found this great sim racing resource. Wish we had these back in the 70's & 80's. First of all a quick introduction. I got into sim racing while watching the likes of Giles Villeneuve (& his son Jacques after) and Nigel Mansell. When my wife & I got our 1st townhome, I got approval from our strata council to put up a 10' satellite dish to catch live feeds of Gilles racing in Europe. Actually delayed our honeymoon a month to go watch Gilles race in the 1st ever Caesar's Palace F1 GP in Las Vegas. After Gilles' sudden death in '81, I stopped following F1 until the Red 5 of Nigel Mansell came into prominence. Watched him at a couple of Indycar CART races when he came to North America. After that followed Jacque's career til he raced for BAR, then that was it! During that time, I started sim racing on a 128K dialup modem using AOL racing titles like Nascar & Grand Prix Legends. Wasn't much fun with the lag & a lot of idiots just joing & crashing into you. I remember buying the 1st ever force feedback wheel by Thrustmaster which was revolutionary back then!

Now that this COVID-19 pandemic has most of us staying home, I spent a lot of time on the internet exploring, thus stumbling onto this great website! Technology sure has come around. I was so impressed that I currently bought an Oculus Rift S (to try out) with titles like Assetto Corsa, Project Cars 2 & rFactor 2. So far, other than the dizziness from playing too long, it's been great! I just recently finished building a small form factor PC with a Ryzen 3950x & RTX 2070 itx GPU.

My old FF wheel has been great, but it's time I upgraded. Looking to all for advice on hardware. I'm not a rich man at all, but I believe in investing in good hardware & I don't believe in swapping equipment all the time. Amongst the popular brands, Fanatec has caught my eye with their CS Elite F1 Set and their top-of-the-line F1 Podium Racing Wheel. Although I like the look of the latter, obviously the cost beg's the question if this direct-drive wheel & base combo is that much better than the CS Elite F1 bundle. For separate pedal sets, I was looking at the Fanatec Club Sport V3 w/load cell or Heusinkveld's Sprint or Ultimate pedals. One other consideration I have to let you all know is that my rig needs to be put away, thus limiting them from permanent sim rigs that take up space.

Right now I enjoy rFactor 2 the most, mainly because of my F1 interests & the numerous mods available. rFactor 2 just seems more enjoyable to drive because of it's great handling right out of the box! Maybe with this upgrade, I can really get into AC, PC2 and even the newly released Automobilista 2.

I would like to give thanks to all those that have read this far. Your advice on the above & on other hardware that I have not mentioned (that may be of worthy consideration), would be greatly appreciated!
 

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