Cat5e/6 cabling question

beachBOYken

beachBOYken

beachBOYken

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Hi

Is it ok to mix cat5e and cat6?

Or should I just stick with 5e.

Reason I ask is Im moving my Asus n66u router and will need a few longer network cables and was going to maybe get cat6.

Altogether the max length from VM SH1(modem mode) including all patch cables works out about 30-35m (rough guess, might be less).

I will be getting VM 200mbps soon.

Would I be best sticking to 5e.

Thanks
 
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It really won't make any odds. The only time you will experience any issues is if you try to punch down Cat5e into a Cat6 IDC.

However you also won't see any benefit. The only benefit you could see would be if the cable was Cat6 end to end and under 30M and your NICs could support 10G.


P.S. Although a new standard can actually put 2.5 down a Cat5e :p
 
Fluffybob said:
you won't see a massive difference between 5 and 6 tbh. That length will not be an issue for you.
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This was what I wasn't sure about seen as Im getting a faster internet speed soon, I just wanted to make sure I will still get max performance over a long distance with 5e.

Thanks
 
Hyburnate said:
It really won't make any odds. The only time you will experience any issues is if you try to punch down Cat5e into a Cat6 IDC.

However you also won't see any benefit. The only benefit you could see would be if the cable was Cat6 end to end and under 30M and your NICs could support 10G.


P.S. Although a new standard can actually put 2.5 down a Cat5e :p
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Dont understand much of that:o

Providing I reach my speeds without any degraded performance Im happy.

Most of my devices are wireless, its only I have my iMac at the furthest location which I like to be wired.
 
Won't make any difference.

The only time it would make a difference is if you had a 90M distance from switch to wall port using cat6 and then added on a 10M cat5e patch lead to the device. Then you probably could measure a drop using an analyser.

In real world terms, especially for home use, you would never notice.


Cat5e is rated to 10Gbe for lengths under 30M, so you've got nothing to worry about. If I was making a new network that was all on 10Gbe, then I would opt for Cat6 just to over spec.
 
bledd said:
Won't make any difference.

The only time it would make a difference is if you had a 90M distance from switch to wall port using cat6 and then added on a 10M cat5e patch lead to the device. Then you probably could measure a drop using an analyser.

In real world terms, especially for home use, you would never notice.


Cat5e is rated to 10Gbe for lengths under 30M, so you've got nothing to worry about. If I was making a new network that was all on 10Gbe, then I would opt for Cat6 just to over spec.
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Thanks very much, I will just get 5e then.
 
APM said:
Fantastic,thanks for that.

I wonder how long it will be before we start seeing switches and routers with that standard.
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Who knows... Hopefully it wont get skipped :o

I'm not sure if a lot of researching has gone into 10G now and it'll make 2.5G/5G less of an opportunity.
 
I doubt there's much mainstream consumer demand.

The majority of people use wireless devices with ISP provided routers. The connection just needs to fast enough to more-or-less keep up with the speed of the Internet connection.
 
using a 20 metre cat5e from my router into my lounge i bought some cat6 cables for my av set up to use off a gigabit switch, getting the same speed as on my desktop that has cat 6 from the router
 
beachBOYken said:
Hi

Is it ok to mix cat5e and cat6?

Or should I just stick with 5e.

Reason I ask is Im moving my Asus n66u router and will need a few longer network cables and was going to maybe get cat6.

Altogether the max length from VM SH1(modem mode) including all patch cables works out about 30-35m (rough guess, might be less).

I will be getting VM 200mbps soon.

Would I be best sticking to 5e.

Thanks
Click to expand...

For that length and speed, 5e will be fine. You should easily manage 800mbit over that length with 5e.

Only go with cat 6 if you want the full gigabit speed.
 
APM said:
Fantastic,thanks for that.

I wonder how long it will be before we start seeing switches and routers with that standard.
Click to expand...

It does exist, but it's designed for high end 802.11ac Wave 2 access points to use an existing cable run. Cisco call it Multigigabit Ethernet and have had it in products for a couple of years.

The advantage over 10GbE is that the cabling spec and distance requirements are not so strict, and the power consumption is lower.
 
Hyburnate said:
Who knows... Hopefully it wont get skipped :o

I'm not sure if a lot of researching has gone into 10G now and it'll make 2.5G/5G less of an opportunity.
Click to expand...

Not sure about 2.5/5gbe over cat 5e getting skipped.

Yes 10gbe would be nice, but refitting our factory with cat 6a for example with under 60 meter runs would be a serious investment, not withstanding the costs of the switches/nics etc.

Unless the hardware based on 802.3bz is seriously more expensive than 802.3ae we're unlikely to consider 10gbe above it. I suspect 803.2BZ will find a fair market.
 
bledd said:
Hopefully it does get skipped. 10 is what we want.
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10G copper is just so expensive. I could count how many of our customers at work have adopted them on one hand. They seem to fall into one of two brackets, they can't afford it or simply don't need it or they'd prefer to go down the fibre route because if OM3/4 is installed they can get much higher than 10G in the future.


e; Just to make it clear, there is no requirement for 99% of the customers I've been involved with to have 2.5 to the desk due to 99% moving to the cloud for obvious reasons so 1G really does suffice as it's literally providing an internet connection, high bandwidth is only required between cabinets/switches which they'll use fibre.
 
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