Apex Sim Racing Buyer’s Guide 2026

Apex Sim Racing is one of those brands that started the way a lot of the best sim racing companies do – a frustrated sim racer in a workshop, building what the market wasn’t offering. Based out of New Jersey, they’ve grown from making custom button boxes into a full-service retailer carrying Simucube, Moza, Simagic, Cube Controls, and more – whilst still manufacturing their own dashboards, displays, and button boxes in-house.

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What makes Apex interesting is that they’re not just a reseller, they started as manufacturers. Jimmy at ApexSimRacing designs and builds his own button boxes, dashboard pods, and DDU displays using custom PCBs, CNC-machined aluminium, and proper carbon fibre. A lot like Trak Racer, Apex Sim Racing are a retailer where you can buy your Simagic wheelbase, your Cube Controls wheel, and an Apex-built dashboard to tie it all together – from one place, with one customer service team.

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Why Apex Sim Racing | Flagship Products | Button Boxes | Dashboards | Displays | Steering Wheels | Accessories | Compare by Investment Level

This guide covers Apex Sim Racing’s own-brand products – their button boxes, dashboards, DDU displays, steering wheels, and accessories. They also carry a huge range of third-party brands which you can browse on their site, but here I’m focusing on the kit they actually design and build themselves.

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Why Apex Sim Racing?

Apex Sim Racing was founded around 2019 by Dan, a sim racer based in Mountainside, New Jersey. The origin story is familiar: he couldn’t find button boxes that met his standards, so he started building his own. What started as custom builds for mates turned into a proper business – and now they’ve shipped over 20,000 orders.

The thing that sets them apart from other US retailers is the manufacturing side. Their own-brand products use custom-designed PCBs, CNC-machined aluminium enclosures, and real carbon fibre faceplates. They’re hand-assembled, not mass-produced. The switches are industrial-grade – APEM, NKK, Grayhill – the same components you’d find in professional equipment. This isn’t a retailer slapping their logo on white-label products.

Community Sentiment

From what I’ve read across Reddit and the various sim racing forums, the community response to Apex is overwhelmingly positive. Customer service comes up constantly – Dan is apparently very hands-on and responsive, which matters when you’re spending hundreds on peripherals. Build quality is the other consistent theme. People describe the products as feeling industrial-grade, solid, built to last.

The honest caveats? Lead times. Because products are hand-built in small batches, you might be waiting 4-5 weeks for popular items like the Slim Racer button boxes. Stock can be patchy too – several products are frequently sold out or on pre-order. If you need something immediately, that can be frustrating. Worth noting they’re primarily US-focused, so international shipping adds time and cost.

If you’re after a one-stop shop where you can buy from major brands and get genuinely well-made accessories to complement your setup, Apex is worth a look. If you’re on a tight budget or need next-day delivery, you’ll probably want to look at larger retailers with bigger stock levels.

Apex Sim Racing Flagship Products

Three products define what Apex does well: the Universal Dashboard, the GT3R DDU display, and the Slim Racer button box range. Each one shows their approach – solid materials, custom electronics, and designed by someone who actually uses this stuff.

Universal Sim Racing Dashboard

The Universal Dashboard is Apex’s flagship accessory at $550. It’s compatible with Simucube, Simagic Alpha and Evo, VRS, and Mige wheelbases – so it covers most of the direct drive market outside of Fanatec’s closed ecosystem. The build uses CNC-machined aluminium with a carbon fibre faceplate, and it integrates button controls directly around the display area.

What I find interesting about this product is the compatibility range. Rather than making you buy a wheelbase-specific version, they’ve designed one unit that works across most open-ecosystem wheelbases. That said, they do also make Fanatec-specific versions if you’re in that ecosystem.

GT3R 5″ DDU Sim Racing Display V2

The GT3R DDU is a standalone 5-inch display at $395. It uses dual custom PCBs with a single USB connection to your PC – clean and simple. It runs through SimHub, so game compatibility is broad. The display itself is an industrial-grade LCD chosen for clarity under the kind of quick-glance conditions you get in racing.

At $395, it sits in competitive territory against displays from brands like Simcore and SRB. The custom PCB approach means Apex controls the whole signal chain, which should mean better reliability than off-the-shelf controller boards.

Slim Racer Button Box

The Slim Racer comes in three versions: V1 with 12 push buttons, V2 with 6 buttons and an encoder, and V3 with 2 encoders. All three cost $140. The enclosure is CNC-machined aluminium with a carbon fibre faceplate, and the switches are proper industrial-grade components.

The different versions let you pick the input layout that actually suits how you race. If you mostly need momentary buttons for things like pit limiter, flash, and radio, V1 is your pick. If you want rotary control for brake bias or traction control adjustments mid-race, V2 or V3 make more sense. At $140, these are solidly in the mid-range for button boxes – more than a cheap 3D-printed option, but well below Precision Sim Engineering territory.

Button Boxes

Button boxes are where Apex started, and it shows. The range covers different form factors and input configurations, from the compact Black Box Mini at $125 through to the Race Deck and XL Race Deck for streamers who need both physical buttons and Elgato Stream Deck integration. The Push To Talk button box at $150 solves a specific problem for iRacing and league racers who want a dedicated PTT button without faffing about with keyboard bindings.

Build quality across the range is consistent – CNC aluminium, carbon fibre, industrial switches. The Slim Racer V1/V2/V3 series at $140 is probably the sweet spot for most sim racers.

Dashboards

Apex’s dashboard range is designed around specific wheelbase ecosystems. They make dedicated versions for Fanatec (Podium DD1/DD2, CSL DD, CS DD, GT PRO DD), Simucube, Simagic, and a universal option that covers VRS and Mige as well. They also make SimLab P1-X specific dash board pods that mount directly to the rig profile.

Prices range from around $170 for the SimLab P1-X pods up to $550 for the Fanatec Podium and Universal versions. The Fanatec CS DD/CSL DD version is currently on sale at $400, down from $550. These are CNC-machined aluminium units with integrated button controls – not just display mounts, but functional dashboard assemblies with inputs.

Displays

The display range includes the GT3R 5″ DDU V2 at $395, the PCW DDU at $395 (on sale from $495), and the Race Flag Pro V2 LED flag indicator from $89. The DDU displays run through SimHub, giving you telemetry, timing, and flag information across most popular sims including iRacing, Assetto Corsa, ACC, and more.

The Race Flag Pro V2 is a nice touch – it’s a dedicated LED flag indicator that gives you visual alerts for blue flags, yellow flags, and other race conditions without cluttering your main display. At $89, it’s one of Apex’s most accessible products.

Steering Wheels

Apex’s own-brand steering wheel offering is more limited – the Aero Sim Racing Steering Wheel is currently on sale at $65, down from $130. It’s a round wheel suitable for various racing disciplines. However, as a retailer they carry a much wider range from Cube Controls, Moza, Simagic, and Sabelt.

Honestly, the steering wheels aren’t where Apex’s own-brand strength lies. Their real expertise is in the electronics – button boxes, displays, and dashboards. For wheels, you’re better off looking at the third-party brands they carry, which include some of the best in the business.

Accessories

Apex also sells DIY parts for people who want to build their own button boxes or modify existing equipment. This includes individual buttons, toggles, encoders, 7-way switches, cables, and connectors. If you’re the type who likes to build custom panels, Apex is one of the few places where you can source proper industrial-grade switches without going through specialist electronics distributors.

They also carry mounting solutions, including their own horizontal button box mount V2 at $190, built from the same CNC aluminium and carbon fibre as their other products.

Compare by Investment Level

Apex’s own-brand range spans from about $65 to $550, which makes the investment tiers fairly clear. At the entry level, the Race Flag Pro V2 from $89 and the Aero steering wheel at $65 get you into the brand without a big commitment. The mid-range sweet spot is the Slim Racer button boxes at $140 and the Black Box Mini at $125 – solid products that most sim racers will get genuine use from. At the top end, the Universal Dashboard at $550 and the GT3R DDU at $395 are serious accessories for serious rigs.

My honest take? The button boxes and displays are where Apex really earns its reputation. If you’re looking to add a button box to your rig, the Slim Racer series offers excellent build quality at a fair price. The dashboards make sense if you want an integrated solution that’s designed specifically for your wheelbase, rather than trying to bodge together separate components. As a retailer, their bundle builders for Simagic, Moza, and Sabelt are genuinely useful if you’re building a complete rig from scratch.

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