Thrustmaster TH8A Shifter Review

It's all fun and games until you find a hill.

Let's say you bought a racing wheel with pedals but it's got that clutch pedal that you never set foot on. Solution? Well you could try paddle shifting with a clutch but that's just silly. What you need is a good ol' fashioned gear shifter and Thrustmaster's TH8A is a definite candidate. So how does this piece of kit for rowing your own gears perform?

Gated shifter detail.

I'm going to try and keep this short and sweet as there isn't much extra to say about this thing other than that it does exactly what it's meant to do and it does it rather well. $150 bucks for an optional add on is quite bit of money, but comparing it to more expensive options like he $200 Fanatec Clubsport Shifter SQ, it's a great substitute if want to save $50 bucks. It's almost constructed entirely of metal so it has some weight to it, and the gated shifter is a very nice touch provided you don't intend to use your rig as a dining chair and let the shifter collect garbage. It's designed to work with all steering wheels but only on PC. On console it only works with Thrustmaster's wheels which can be an issue if you have a different brand of wheel.

RAM GPS mount for the Playseat Challenge.

The snifter comes with two options for you to mount it, You can use a heavy duty clamp or you can remove that and hard mount it. I mentioned in My Playseat Challenge review that there was no place to mount the TH8A so I had to modify a RAM GPS mount by boring out wider holes in the mounting plate then hard mounting it to the shifter using the packaged bolts. One you get it mounted you can undo the four bolts on the top a bit and turn the whole shifter any direction you need it to face. Alternatively you can completely undo the bolts and swap out the gated shifter plate for a sequential one for rally driving which is a nice bonus. You can also adjust the tension of the shifter with a screw on the side of the body to make harder or easier to shift.

The shaft can fit regular automotive shifter knobs normally.

Now how does it actually feel? Part of it is your call since you can actually swap out the knob for any of your choice. Yeah, even that skull with the glowing eyes you got from Autozone will fit. Now compared to the Clubsport Shifter, it doesn't feel as mechanical but you get a satisfying heavy thud from the shifter whenever you throw it into gear. It's definitely not plastic sounding like the G27's shifter either. I've had no issues with getting it work on any of my consoles and it's completely changes how you play your games. Against the Clubsport Shifter again, it's not quite as realistic feeling but you get all the same basic features that the $200 SQ version has for $50 bucks less and it stacks up almost as well build quality wise. If you really want to get a high quality shifter for your rig but don't want to go too expensive for one, the TH8A is a great choice.

Is It Better Than?

Fanatec Clubsport Shifter- Depends, the TH8A does all the same stuff as the Clubsport Shifter SQ for $50 bucks less and it's more aesthetically pleasing in my opinion. However the Clubsport has a more realistic, mechanical feel to it and it can also switch into sequential mode without any tools unlike the TH8A. Fanatec also has $150 dollar version without the sequential mode if you don't need it. If so, this is the better shifter hands down.