Gaming Cat5 vs Cat6 cable showdown.....

[754boy]

Ok, could someone explain to me what the differences are in these 2 types of cables. I "heard" That cat6 is faster but the cat5 cable that came with my router is working just fine. Would I get faster speeds while streaming data to my other pc/360 if I upgraded to cat6 cable?

 

[Scorpei]

Ok, could someone explain to me what the differences are in these 2 types of cables. I "heard" That cat6 is faster but the cat5 cable that came with my router is working just fine. Would I get faster speeds while streaming data to my other pc/360 if I upgraded to cat6 cable?

Prolly not. Let me google that for you

:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category_5_cable
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category_6_cable

In short, cat6>cat5(e) but unless you have 10gigabit network lying over there you're fine with cat5e or even below that if you have 100mbit networks.

 

[sgand]

Why stop at Cat6. Go with Cat7.

 

[UltraMagnus]

cat6 is really only needed for gigabit networks IIRC. so unless you are simultaneously streaming a dozen pr0ns over your network just stick with cat5e

 

[Scorpei]

cat6 is really only needed for gigabit networks IIRC. so unless you are simultaneously streaming a dozen pr0ns over your network just stick with cat5e

Cat5 (or below) = 100mbit (or lower, or possibly gigabit)
Cat5e = gigabit
Cat6 = potentially 10 Gbit

Need I explain clearer

?

 

[DeMoN]

There really is not much of a price difference so I suggest buying a Cat 6 just for future-proofing. However a Cat 5e would work just fine since I don't think anyone will have 10 Gbit Ethernet for a long time.

 

[754boy]

Well I do alot of HD streaming, and I do have 1gbit ethernet adapter. So by me using the cat5, am I potentionally capping my speeds to 100mbit?

 

[Taza]

No, with Cat5 you ARE physically capping at 100mbit in the local network. Whereas Cat6 will use the full gigabit. But you're probably using Cat5e anyway, which works better than just Cat5.

 

[Scorpei]

Well seeing as your router prolly is 100mbit (and I dunno bout the nixbox360 but I suppose that is 100mbit too) that doesn't really matter (your cable type I mean).

 

[jumpman17]

CAT6 is faster, but nothing the average user has supports the higher speeds so you just end up with an expensive CAT5 cable.

 

[Captin]

It's all just another way of getting more money from people who dont know better, like all PC so called improvements.

When I changed my router to a gigabit one, plus 2 switches, i thought I would use the same cat-5 cable, eveything worked perfectly, it was faster than my original 10/100 router, but you will never get gigabit.

All PC's and the PS3 has gigabit network connections.

Then I heard that I should re cable my network with cat-6 cable, so off to CPC to get a reel of cable and conectors, not cheap ether.

Did it speed up my network, did it bollox, no increase at all, I use a program from Cisco to monitor the bandwidth speed each PC using, and nothing changed.

Removing QOS did speed things up a little though. And sending files from Vista to Vista is faster then Vista to XP or XP to Vista.

The only thing I found that dramatically improved network performance was when I got rid of all the cjeap natsy network cards and used good quality ones, which I did before converting to gigabit.

 

[Taza]

It's all just another way of getting more money from people who dont know better, like all PC so called improvements.

When I changed my router to a gigabit one, plus 2 switches, i thought I would use the same cat-5 cable, eveything worked perfectly, it was faster than my original 10/100 router, but you will never get gigabit.

All PC's and the PS3 has gigabit network connections.

Then I heard that I should re cable my network with cat-6 cable, so off to CPC to get a reel of cable and conectors, not cheap ether.

Did it speed up my network, did it bollox, no increase at all, I use a program from Cisco to monitor the bandwidth speed each PC using, and nothing changed.

Removing QOS did speed things up a little though. And sending files from Vista to Vista is faster then Vista to XP or XP to Vista.

The only thing I found that dramatically improved network performance was when I got rid of all the cjeap natsy network cards and used good quality ones, which I did before converting to gigabit.

He's wrong in pretty much every point. Too much to quote however.

However, the lesson stays the same - unless you're capping the 100mb, the 1gb cable makes no difference. And that high quality NICs are better than low quality NICs, surprise surprise.