One should ALWAYS get Cat6 ethernet cables, right?
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You are correct. There is no benefit to purchasing Cat 5 if Cat6 is the same price.
cat 6 is good for gigabit ethernet and everything slower.
cat 5e is fine for gigabit ethernet and everything slower.
cat 5 is good for 100mb ethernet, and slower
cat 3 is good for 10mb.
anything less is good for phone.
cat 5e is fine for gigabit ethernet and everything slower.
cat 5 is good for 100mb ethernet, and slower
cat 3 is good for 10mb.
anything less is good for phone.
No, completely wrong!
We just had thosuands of feet long Cat 5e cables installed for our gigabit network in our laboratories. We had 170 new ethernet connections installed in the building and they used 40,000 feet 5e cable. We just activated a new $20,000 switch blade with 72 gigabit connections. Building itself is supplied with dark fiber.
The answer is simple: You don't need Cat 6 or or higher. Cat 5e (careful, not Cat 5!) is all you need for 1000 Mbps connections up to lengths of several hundred feet per link. So, get 5e (not 5) instead of 6 and save $$! Everyone who does this professionally for a living knows that for gigabit connections and for lengths within a few hundred feet, 5e is more than enough.
We just had thosuands of feet long Cat 5e cables installed for our gigabit network in our laboratories. We had 170 new ethernet connections installed in the building and they used 40,000 feet 5e cable. We just activated a new $20,000 switch blade with 72 gigabit connections. Building itself is supplied with dark fiber.
The answer is simple: You don't need Cat 6 or or higher. Cat 5e (careful, not Cat 5!) is all you need for 1000 Mbps connections up to lengths of several hundred feet per link. So, get 5e (not 5) instead of 6 and save $$! Everyone who does this professionally for a living knows that for gigabit connections and for lengths within a few hundred feet, 5e is more than enough.
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Originally Posted By: Gokhan
No, completely wrong!
We just had thosuands of feet long Cat 5e cables installed for our gigabit network in our laboratories. We had 170 new ethernet connections installed in the building and they used 40,000 feet 5e cable. We just activated a new $20,000 switch blade with 72 gigabit connections. Building itself is supplied with dark fiber.
The answer is simple: You don't need Cat 6 or or higher. Cat 5e (careful, not Cat 5!) is all you need for 1000 Mbps connections up to lengths of several hundred feet per link. So, get 5e (not 5) instead of 6 and save $$! Everyone who does this professionally for a living knows that for gigabit connections and for lengths within a few hundred feet, 5e is more than enough.
The point is Cat5e and Cat6 are around the same price.
I have Cat6 in my house and it cost the same amount to run.
I also find it ridiculous your company ran cat5e instead of 6 with that many connections. Good luck w/ the XT.
No, completely wrong!
We just had thosuands of feet long Cat 5e cables installed for our gigabit network in our laboratories. We had 170 new ethernet connections installed in the building and they used 40,000 feet 5e cable. We just activated a new $20,000 switch blade with 72 gigabit connections. Building itself is supplied with dark fiber.
The answer is simple: You don't need Cat 6 or or higher. Cat 5e (careful, not Cat 5!) is all you need for 1000 Mbps connections up to lengths of several hundred feet per link. So, get 5e (not 5) instead of 6 and save $$! Everyone who does this professionally for a living knows that for gigabit connections and for lengths within a few hundred feet, 5e is more than enough.
The point is Cat5e and Cat6 are around the same price.
I have Cat6 in my house and it cost the same amount to run.
I also find it ridiculous your company ran cat5e instead of 6 with that many connections. Good luck w/ the XT.
If it's the same price, then get 6 but I'm sure you can find much cheaper 5e if you shop around. Also, it doesn't matter if the cable is only a few hundred feet and you are using 1,000 Mbps or less, which is more than likely.
Cat 5e has an other obvious advantage over 6: It's much thinner. Imagine trying to pass 170 cables through a hole. 5e is much easier to work with when dealing with many cables bundled together.
Again, for 1000 Mbps, both 5e and 6 work. For a six-foot-long patch cable between your modem and computer, simply anything would work, even 5.
Moreover, the professional systems are tested after the cables are laid out, and they did the tests here and the 5e cables passed the tests here. It's not a matter of trying to save a few bucks by using 5e rather than 6, it's a matter of much easier handling of thinner cable.
Again, for home use, anything will work, and don't bother wasting mind energy on such deep conundrums like 5e vs. 6. Because it will be exactly the same Internet connection no matter what you plug.
Cat 5e has an other obvious advantage over 6: It's much thinner. Imagine trying to pass 170 cables through a hole. 5e is much easier to work with when dealing with many cables bundled together.
Again, for 1000 Mbps, both 5e and 6 work. For a six-foot-long patch cable between your modem and computer, simply anything would work, even 5.
Moreover, the professional systems are tested after the cables are laid out, and they did the tests here and the 5e cables passed the tests here. It's not a matter of trying to save a few bucks by using 5e rather than 6, it's a matter of much easier handling of thinner cable.
Again, for home use, anything will work, and don't bother wasting mind energy on such deep conundrums like 5e vs. 6. Because it will be exactly the same Internet connection no matter what you plug.
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Originally Posted By: Gokhan
No, completely wrong!
We just had thosuands of feet long Cat 5e cables installed for our gigabit network in our laboratories. We had 170 new ethernet connections installed in the building and they used 40,000 feet 5e cable. We just activated a new $20,000 switch blade with 72 gigabit connections. Building itself is supplied with dark fiber.
The answer is simple: You don't need Cat 6 or or higher. Cat 5e (careful, not Cat 5!) is all you need for 1000 Mbps connections up to lengths of several hundred feet per link. So, get 5e (not 5) instead of 6 and save $$! Everyone who does this professionally for a living knows that for gigabit connections and for lengths within a few hundred feet, 5e is more than enough.
It is not completely wrong, so why did you state that?
No, completely wrong!
We just had thosuands of feet long Cat 5e cables installed for our gigabit network in our laboratories. We had 170 new ethernet connections installed in the building and they used 40,000 feet 5e cable. We just activated a new $20,000 switch blade with 72 gigabit connections. Building itself is supplied with dark fiber.
The answer is simple: You don't need Cat 6 or or higher. Cat 5e (careful, not Cat 5!) is all you need for 1000 Mbps connections up to lengths of several hundred feet per link. So, get 5e (not 5) instead of 6 and save $$! Everyone who does this professionally for a living knows that for gigabit connections and for lengths within a few hundred feet, 5e is more than enough.
It is not completely wrong, so why did you state that?
Originally Posted By: tmorris1
Originally Posted By: Gokhan
No, completely wrong!
We just had thosuands of feet long Cat 5e cables installed for our gigabit network in our laboratories. We had 170 new ethernet connections installed in the building and they used 40,000 feet 5e cable. We just activated a new $20,000 switch blade with 72 gigabit connections. Building itself is supplied with dark fiber.
The answer is simple: You don't need Cat 6 or or higher. Cat 5e (careful, not Cat 5!) is all you need for 1000 Mbps connections up to lengths of several hundred feet per link. So, get 5e (not 5) instead of 6 and save $$! Everyone who does this professionally for a living knows that for gigabit connections and for lengths within a few hundred feet, 5e is more than enough.
It is not completely wrong, so why did you state that?
The original statement in the question said "ALWAYS," which obviously makes it completely wrong. If it said sometimes, I wouldn't say it was completely wrong.
Again, guys, I was just giving you the picture in the professional versus consumer world. Of course, if you see 5e and 6 next to each other in Wal-Mart sold at the same price (probably already overpriced for both, such as $7 or so, rather than the actual whole-sale cost of 99 cents), pick up 6 -- no-brainer, as you're already being ripped off anyway. But, if you will save money, go with 5e because 6 won't give you any observable benefit. And, as I said, 5e is much easier to use in building installations for new-generation-Internet, aka gigabit networks, when you're dealing with dozens of cables bundled together because it's thinner.
5e is perfectly fine for 1000 Mbps connections that are not too long, even for commercial gigabit servers, let alone DSL and cable modems at home.
The only reason you would really need 6 would be if you had 10,000 Mbps (10 Gbps) ethernet connection or 1,000 Mbps (1 Gbps) ethernet connection with cable longer than 200 ft or so.
Originally Posted By: Gokhan
No, completely wrong!
We just had thosuands of feet long Cat 5e cables installed for our gigabit network in our laboratories. We had 170 new ethernet connections installed in the building and they used 40,000 feet 5e cable. We just activated a new $20,000 switch blade with 72 gigabit connections. Building itself is supplied with dark fiber.
The answer is simple: You don't need Cat 6 or or higher. Cat 5e (careful, not Cat 5!) is all you need for 1000 Mbps connections up to lengths of several hundred feet per link. So, get 5e (not 5) instead of 6 and save $$! Everyone who does this professionally for a living knows that for gigabit connections and for lengths within a few hundred feet, 5e is more than enough.
It is not completely wrong, so why did you state that?
The original statement in the question said "ALWAYS," which obviously makes it completely wrong. If it said sometimes, I wouldn't say it was completely wrong.
Again, guys, I was just giving you the picture in the professional versus consumer world. Of course, if you see 5e and 6 next to each other in Wal-Mart sold at the same price (probably already overpriced for both, such as $7 or so, rather than the actual whole-sale cost of 99 cents), pick up 6 -- no-brainer, as you're already being ripped off anyway. But, if you will save money, go with 5e because 6 won't give you any observable benefit. And, as I said, 5e is much easier to use in building installations for new-generation-Internet, aka gigabit networks, when you're dealing with dozens of cables bundled together because it's thinner.
5e is perfectly fine for 1000 Mbps connections that are not too long, even for commercial gigabit servers, let alone DSL and cable modems at home.
The only reason you would really need 6 would be if you had 10,000 Mbps (10 Gbps) ethernet connection or 1,000 Mbps (1 Gbps) ethernet connection with cable longer than 200 ft or so.
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Originally Posted By: Gokhan
No, completely wrong!
We just had thosuands of feet long Cat 5e cables installed for our gigabit network in our laboratories. We had 170 new ethernet connections installed in the building and they used 40,000 feet 5e cable. We just activated a new $20,000 switch blade with 72 gigabit connections. Building itself is supplied with dark fiber.
The answer is simple: You don't need Cat 6 or or higher. Cat 5e (careful, not Cat 5!) is all you need for 1000 Mbps connections up to lengths of several hundred feet per link. So, get 5e (not 5) instead of 6 and save $$! Everyone who does this professionally for a living knows that for gigabit connections and for lengths within a few hundred feet, 5e is more than enough.
er... what? Did you even read the original post?
No, completely wrong!
We just had thosuands of feet long Cat 5e cables installed for our gigabit network in our laboratories. We had 170 new ethernet connections installed in the building and they used 40,000 feet 5e cable. We just activated a new $20,000 switch blade with 72 gigabit connections. Building itself is supplied with dark fiber.
The answer is simple: You don't need Cat 6 or or higher. Cat 5e (careful, not Cat 5!) is all you need for 1000 Mbps connections up to lengths of several hundred feet per link. So, get 5e (not 5) instead of 6 and save $$! Everyone who does this professionally for a living knows that for gigabit connections and for lengths within a few hundred feet, 5e is more than enough.
er... what? Did you even read the original post?
Originally Posted By: Gokhan
Again, guys, I was just giving you the picture in the professional versus consumer world. Of course, if you see 5e and 6 next to each other in Wal-Mart sold at the same price (probably already overpriced for both, such as $7 or so, rather than the actual whole-sale cost of 99 cents), pick up 6 -- no-brainer, as you're already being ripped off anyway. But, if you will save money, go with 5e because 6 won't give you any observable benefit. And, as I said, 5e is much easier to use in building installations for new-generation-Internet, aka gigabit networks, when you're dealing with dozens of cables bundled together because it's thinner.
5e is perfectly fine for 1000 Mbps connections that are not too long, even for commercial gigabit servers, let alone DSL and cable modems at home.
oh.. i guess this is a situation where we are both right. what you said is correct (with the exception of the "completely wrong" comment), and what the posters, including myself, say is also correct. But if they are the same price, it doesn't matter. Get Cat 6. You are correct to point out the difference in Cat 5 vs Cat 5e.
Again, guys, I was just giving you the picture in the professional versus consumer world. Of course, if you see 5e and 6 next to each other in Wal-Mart sold at the same price (probably already overpriced for both, such as $7 or so, rather than the actual whole-sale cost of 99 cents), pick up 6 -- no-brainer, as you're already being ripped off anyway. But, if you will save money, go with 5e because 6 won't give you any observable benefit. And, as I said, 5e is much easier to use in building installations for new-generation-Internet, aka gigabit networks, when you're dealing with dozens of cables bundled together because it's thinner.
5e is perfectly fine for 1000 Mbps connections that are not too long, even for commercial gigabit servers, let alone DSL and cable modems at home.
oh.. i guess this is a situation where we are both right. what you said is correct (with the exception of the "completely wrong" comment), and what the posters, including myself, say is also correct. But if they are the same price, it doesn't matter. Get Cat 6. You are correct to point out the difference in Cat 5 vs Cat 5e.
Yes, I think we all agree at the end. I shouldn't have said "completely."
Knowing the backward compatibility, I would pick up 6, 7, or whatever is the highest number if they were priced the same in a retail store. (I should say that I hate to buy electronics components in retail stores because they are highly overpriced compared to online stores.) And if I somehow ended up with 5e, I wouldn't worry, knowing that it's perfectly fine for gigabit connections of modest length.
I have been talking to the installers (of ethernet connections in the building), who had brought tens of thousands of feet of 5e cable in boxes of big reels, and they were telling me that the price of copper was going up again and so were the cable prices. Main difference between 5e and 6 is the wire insulation, not the copper gauge.
And, to emphasize again, the reason they used 5e instead of 6 was because it's a lot thinner and it makes your life much easier when you have a bundle of 200 cables going through conduits, holes, hangers, etc. Our IT infrastructure director has thousands of gigabit connections installed in the campus every year and he specifically told them in front of me to use 5e because it's a lot thinner but yet sufficient for lengths below 200 ft or so.
But, at the end, the installers screwed up the numbering of the jacks and now we have to have that corrected, as a good fraction of the connections are not working now because some of the cables were punched to the wrong terminal posts on a board, where the patch cables from the gigabit switches are punched to make the final cross connection.
Knowing the backward compatibility, I would pick up 6, 7, or whatever is the highest number if they were priced the same in a retail store. (I should say that I hate to buy electronics components in retail stores because they are highly overpriced compared to online stores.) And if I somehow ended up with 5e, I wouldn't worry, knowing that it's perfectly fine for gigabit connections of modest length.
I have been talking to the installers (of ethernet connections in the building), who had brought tens of thousands of feet of 5e cable in boxes of big reels, and they were telling me that the price of copper was going up again and so were the cable prices. Main difference between 5e and 6 is the wire insulation, not the copper gauge.
And, to emphasize again, the reason they used 5e instead of 6 was because it's a lot thinner and it makes your life much easier when you have a bundle of 200 cables going through conduits, holes, hangers, etc. Our IT infrastructure director has thousands of gigabit connections installed in the campus every year and he specifically told them in front of me to use 5e because it's a lot thinner but yet sufficient for lengths below 200 ft or so.
But, at the end, the installers screwed up the numbering of the jacks and now we have to have that corrected, as a good fraction of the connections are not working now because some of the cables were punched to the wrong terminal posts on a board, where the patch cables from the gigabit switches are punched to make the final cross connection.
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Everything depends on the intended use. I had to use some of my ethernet cables to run HDMI over them. I had a 75ft run of HDMI over 2 Cat cables. With Cat6 it worked. With Cat5e, it did not.
For basic gigabit ethernet, Cat5e is sufficient, assuming everything is properly terminated, as mentioned earlier.
For basic gigabit ethernet, Cat5e is sufficient, assuming everything is properly terminated, as mentioned earlier.
Originally Posted By: Quattro Pete
Everything depends on the intended use. I had to use some of my ethernet cables to run HDMI over them. I had a 75ft run of HDMI over 2 Cat cables. With Cat6 it worked. With Cat5e, it did not.
For basic gigabit ethernet, Cat5e is sufficient, assuming everything is properly terminated, as mentioned earlier.
HDMI is a lot higher frequency than ethernet I think, so that makes sense.
Regular CAT5 will handle short runs of gigabit even if it is good cable. CAT5E will be fine for gigabit in any residential setting, but as other said if CAT6 is available and near the same price, get it.
I have CAT5E and Cat6 run in my house and the CAT6 is definitely a thicker, stiffer cable though.
Everything depends on the intended use. I had to use some of my ethernet cables to run HDMI over them. I had a 75ft run of HDMI over 2 Cat cables. With Cat6 it worked. With Cat5e, it did not.
For basic gigabit ethernet, Cat5e is sufficient, assuming everything is properly terminated, as mentioned earlier.
HDMI is a lot higher frequency than ethernet I think, so that makes sense.
Regular CAT5 will handle short runs of gigabit even if it is good cable. CAT5E will be fine for gigabit in any residential setting, but as other said if CAT6 is available and near the same price, get it.
I have CAT5E and Cat6 run in my house and the CAT6 is definitely a thicker, stiffer cable though.
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Holy heck I wish I had 1000 Mbpsd speed running to my house.... I heard in South Korea they are going to get close to that even if you live way out of town in rural areas.
I just talked to our IT infrastructure director, who was here to inspect the installers who were correcting the Ethernet cables punched to the wrong terminals. He said they use 6a in new buildings but they use 5e in old buildings because in old buildings the conduits aren't big enough for the thicker 6a. He said 6a also requires completely different infrastructure, such as terminal posts (where the cables are punched in) built to different specs. He also said that 6a costs twice as much as 5e. But he said 5e still works for for the currently available 1,000 Mbps networks. (It would only cause a problem when they transitioned to 10,000 Mbps networks, probably not for at least 20 years from now, but Ethernet cable might be history by then, fiber being used instead.)
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OVERKILL
$100 Site Donor 2021
Cat 6 (at reduced distances) and 6a are suitable for 10G runs, not just Gig-E like Cat5e.
When I have an install done, it is always CAT 6a for the future compatibility. The company I work with on installs has never complained about 6 being harder to run. It simply requires different RJ45 ends and patches due to often being sold in the heavier 22-gauge vs 24-gauge for 5/5e.
I have Cat 6a in my house, primarily because it was job cast-offs, so I didn't have to pay anything for it.
However, in a situation where both cables were the same price and we didn't have to worry about having to upgrade the termination points, then yes, the CAT 6 patch cable is always going to be superior. It is (often) heavier gauge copper with 10-gig capability, and lower cross-talk and attenuation. Now whether you will actually USE that capability or not.... That's a whole other topic. But the CAT 6 cable is a "better" cable.
Cat 5e is just CAT 5 with more twists per foot. CAT 6 uses plastic separators between each pair, heavier insulation, and is usually (and has been in my installs) heavier gauge wire. This is with better attenuation, and less cross-talk. It is a better constructed cable. And it is better constructed because it is rated to handle 10x the bandwidth.
And that is also why it is usually more expensive.
When I have an install done, it is always CAT 6a for the future compatibility. The company I work with on installs has never complained about 6 being harder to run. It simply requires different RJ45 ends and patches due to often being sold in the heavier 22-gauge vs 24-gauge for 5/5e.
I have Cat 6a in my house, primarily because it was job cast-offs, so I didn't have to pay anything for it.
However, in a situation where both cables were the same price and we didn't have to worry about having to upgrade the termination points, then yes, the CAT 6 patch cable is always going to be superior. It is (often) heavier gauge copper with 10-gig capability, and lower cross-talk and attenuation. Now whether you will actually USE that capability or not.... That's a whole other topic. But the CAT 6 cable is a "better" cable.
Cat 5e is just CAT 5 with more twists per foot. CAT 6 uses plastic separators between each pair, heavier insulation, and is usually (and has been in my installs) heavier gauge wire. This is with better attenuation, and less cross-talk. It is a better constructed cable. And it is better constructed because it is rated to handle 10x the bandwidth.
And that is also why it is usually more expensive.
Originally Posted By: OVERK1LL
Cat 5e is just CAT 5 with more twists per foot.
Depending on which particular cat 5 you're comparing it to, there may not even be that much difference.
Cat 5e is just CAT 5 with more twists per foot.
Depending on which particular cat 5 you're comparing it to, there may not even be that much difference.
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