Is it worth buying cat6 ethernet cable?

alexjholland

alexjholland

alexjholland

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322
Hey

I live in a garage conversion under my house.

When we converted it, we ran a 15-20 metre piece of ethernet cable from next to the router in our hallway, under the floorboards and down into my room - which was a bloody sensible decision.

This cable then connects to a linksys router in my bedroom, where it is distributed to my PC and XBox 360, a setup which has worked pretty nicely the whole time.

This was about 4 years ago so I am fairly sure that must mean it is cat 5/cat5e cabling (nothing is written on it to confirm).

I am going to buy some new cables as my Macbook doesn't have one yet and I thought I may as well get new cables for each of my devices as cat5e are cheap online currently.

- If I buy cat 6 cable, will I see any reasonable increase in performance? (bear in mind the long piece from my hallway is - probably - cat5e and cannot be replaced)

- If I buy a 10 metre instead of a 5 or 7 metre ethernet cable, will it affect performance?

- Black would be quite cool, although not as important as performance, would these do the trick?

http://www.cableuniverse.co.uk/catalog/cables/Cat5e-RJ45-RJ45-Moulded-Patch-Ethernet-cable.html
 
Simple answer, no.

CAT6 is a bitch to work with, offers you no advantages in your situation and will cost you a bit more.
 
Just thicker and harder to lay down during fitting

You only really need cat6 for industrial use and high end computer networks with high flow data transfer
 
How much cable do you actually need? If you need multiple cables then I could make you them to size for a cheap/cost price, but i only have grey cable...
 
hoppyintheuk said:
Unless your travelling over 80-100 metres in length cat6 isnt worth it.
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Even then it's isn't worth it, I've never seen any difference between well made cat5e and cat6 at any distance up to 100m with GigE. That distance you should be using fibre anyway if you want a reliable connection.
 
As the others said, CAT5e will be fine.

Re CAT6, I haven't found it noticeably harder to work with. Used it at home when running under floors in the loft and dropping down inside wall cavities and it seemed fine! :confused:. (Yes I know it will be 99.999% the same performance of CAT5e, but I am never in a million years re-doing that cable run!)
 
Has cat6 basically got larger core sizes over cat5e to allow for the supposingly greater speed hence why its harder to work with?

I have a box full of new cat6 modules which I was going to fit throughout the house so will cat5e still work ok i.e terminate correctly and is there a difference in core colours for cat5e & cat 6?
 
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I setup HDMI over CAT5/6 adapter last year.

It was over about 20 meters and took a route that was impossible for a standard HDMI cable to take.

Anyway, the difference between some really high quality Belkin CAT5e/STP and some pretty cheap CAT6/STP was the difference between choppy 1080p playback and smooth 1080p playback, respectively.

For home data networks, CAT6 is rarely ever needed. But for things like HDMI over CAT5/6... it is worth it.

PS: I found CAT6 to be fine to work with - and this was STP as well!
 
Isn't the point of CAT6 that is can support 10 gigabit ethernet for the full 100m, where as i remember reading cat5e can run at 10Gb speeds, but only at shorter runs (around 30 to 40m if i remember right)? So if it was me, for now just stick to cat5e, but if you ever have to redo the main ethernet cable going throughout the house, then you may as well redo it with cat6 just to future proof yourself.
 
whitecrook said:
For future proofing you should be thinking about running Fibre tbh.
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Why? Fibre is expensive, complicated to install, and will most likely be a LONG time before it is affordable in a home environment, 10gigabit ethernet over cat6 will be most likely the next big ethernet advancement in the home in my opinion.
 
Ryan - thanks for the offer, but bearing in mind how cheap these cables are now I can get everything I need in black for £10. And yes, I am that aesthetically obsessed!

Interesting about sending HDMI over Cat6. When considering potential alternative room layouts the prohibitive cost of 15+ metre HDMI cables has been an issue - so nice to know this is possible.
 
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