You can´t compare the pure motor Output force without comparing the transmissions to conclude of the Overall Force on the rim.
I know many People who owns both wheels and all of them said, that the force on the rim is nearly the same. The only difference ist that the Thrustmaster 458 rim is much smaller with a positiv effect for the power. Using the smaller formula rim with the Clubsport wheel, it gives you much more power too.
But ist true, the Motors are poor with a poor cooling too. There is no thermal compound between the Motors and the shucks on them
I have both a CSR-Elite (the same as a CSW but with the lightest of all wheel rims...90% plastic!) and a t500 with 458 rim. I don't know what settings "many people you know" have configured their t500 (because it's defaulted to 60% max ffb in control panel!) and csw/csr-elite to when they made their own comparisons but speaking of my own....they are
absolutely (and i cannot stress this enough) not the same in force output. The t500 at 100% feels at
least twice as powerful as the csr-elite (and i was using the older firmware for the csr-elite before fanatec decided to cap the maximum ffb to around 70% to increase the motors life-span on their latest drivers, mid-2012 onwards......i would be shocked if it were not the same case for csw owners).
Like i said, the numbers agreed with my own experience of comparing the two wheels....this was a month before i ever found out about these torque values for the motors.
My csr-elite actually has some thermal paste between the heat sink and the motors. I know this because when i they sent me a replacement motor (the first time it broke and i opted to replace it myself if they shipped me the new motors), i decided to try and take apart the dead motors. Removing the heatsink was reasonably easy (to which i then saw the thermal paste) but i couldn't open the motor because it had no exposed screws but was riveted instead.
My csr-e broke again just before christmas, luckily a month before my warranty ends. So i sent it back to get repaired (whilst i decided to purchase a t500) and i received it back a few weeks ago. I plugged in it to test the motor were indeed new and just like when they repaired it around Q1 2013, they also sneak-ishly updated the firmware to be the latest which knocks the ffb strength right down!
I decided to try it (having done so the last time and then soon after reverted back to the firmware that was much stronger) and i left the pits and thought....blimmy this is punny weak ffb. Could hardly feel it all. Then i thought, "oh wait, i usually used to use 100% ffb in-game setting for the csr-elite but i have it set to 60% in-game because the t500 is just so strong." So i backed out and saw that it was actually on 100% because of the rf2 autodetect. The csr-elite (on the latest firmware) at 100% ffb felt like 30% on the t500.
"What a joke!" i thought (and still do).
one last thing, regarding your comment about the 458 rim being smaller hence a positive effect for power....if you read around reviews of the 458 rim, they are saying quite the opposite. Yes the rim is a tiny fraction smaller in diameter, but it weighs a lot more and the combination of these two yields more dampening effect of the power with the 458 rim according to reviewers (i've not checked/compared myself because the first thing i did upon unboxing my t500 was to swap the rim). But this was not enough to disway them from using the 458 rims as it has a lot more pro's than con's....plus the t500 is still more than powerful enough to not be fussed by the slight added dampening effect of the 458 rim.
I have a lot more distrust for comparison threads/information on the internet now because of these two wheels. I decided to buy a csr-elite because i was convinced (to be fair by myself and) by other people saying that the csr-elite is better than the t500 for a number of convincing reasons. But the reality is that non of them actually gave advice based on actual experience of comparing the two.....it was all their unfounded opinions and a lot of chinese whispers, simon said, etc.
In some ways i'm actually glad that i bought the csr-elite first. If i had bought the t500 first, i would have been left thinking "i wish i could compare it to the csr-elite/csw for myself because i know (i.e. believed at the time that) the csr-elite/csw is more powerful, smoother, etc...". It's only because the csr-elite had died so many times that i was just sick to death of it that i decided to gamble on trying the t500 (knowing i could return it and in fact betting on that i would because i'm slightly biased towards keeping a wheel that annually breaks but has more power than a wheel that has less power but less prone to break). It was to my absolute astonishment that the truth between these two wheels could not have been more in reverse.
