No, it's considerably different, and here's how.
- Front differential is inside the CVT (and manuals), with zero directional changes (one shaft goes to the front differential, and in the opposite direction, the output shaft goes to the rear differential). There's no 2, 3, or 4 90° turns. There's no separate gear box. That allows more power to be transmitted to the wheels, less stress points in the drivetrain, and easier ability to control where power goes.
- The system is designed to put higher amounts of power to the rear end continuously (and we have a beefy rear end designed to handle it - even beefier in the Premium, Limited and Touring). Honda, for instance, does not, because their system is a part time system. People who decided to push the system, forcing it to be engaged for a little more than their "part time" plans, ended up with burned out rear differentials. Honda's solution to that was to have the computer limit power to the rear even more.
- Subaru's system is symmetrical. That means the system isn't fighting torque steer like all the rest. Instead, it only has AWD chores to deal with. It makes it more able to deal with shuttling power to retain tire grip, and, because it's ALWAYS on AWD, proactive in helping prevent vectoring based slip from ever starting.
- Subaru's system is ALWAYS on. While systems like Nissan's are 100% front, 0% rear for most driving, and Hyundai's are 80-100% front, 20-0% rear, Subaru's is 60/40 under normal driving. Anyone who's driven on the beach with a 2WD/4WD vehicle knows that the same amount of power that makes a 4WD vehicle move, can be the same amount of power to make that same vehicle spin wheels in 2WD mode. NOT breaking grip is considerably better than losing grip and a system trying to correct it.
- Subaru has spent decades building and learning how to make what's arguably one of the best AWD systems on the market, while most other systems are 2WD systems with tacked on components to shuttle some power to the rear.
And in the case of our TR690, there's more. Besides the chain based CVT nature of the system, we don't have the normal collection of gears. We've got primary and secondary reduction gears, a transfer gear, and that's virtually it. Heck, even forward and reverse are not done with gears. Power transfer from engine to differentials is very simple with very few parts.
There's a reason Subaru's system continuously beats the rest in test after test. For instance, other cars do flat ground roller tests, Subarus get tested on inclines.