Cat6 question

Hey I plan on getting some cables from monoprice soon and was looking into cat5e vs. cat6. They are basically the same price, but I was wondering if I would actually see a difference in speed. I transfer a lot of large files so would definitely appreciate the increase.

Also, If I were to go cat 6 I would need to replace my old cat 5e cables or it would create a bottleneck. What about the cable running from my wall to my modem? That thing is like 40 feet long and running through the house, that wouldn't affect network transfer speeds right??

Thanks!

 

Cat6 is designed for gigabit networks, so if all your kit is gigabit then you MAY see an increase. Bar that, unless you want to buy 'futureproof' cable, then you don't need to avoid CAT5e.

As long as you get a solid sync the length shouldnt cause you issues. You won't need to replace all your cables for the reasons above, a lot of shorter CAT5e runs will happily do gigabit, but Im guessing the rest of your equipment wont be (switches, routers, network cards etc).

The modem cable from your wall socket to your modem COULD affect internet speeds dependant on what sort of connection you have. ADSL doesn't really like long cable lengths (more likely to introduce interference) and prefers a short connection to the master socket.

 

Thanks alex, what I meant by length was that it would be a pain to reinstall with a cat6 cable. It runs through walls and stuff, and I just wouldn't be willing to replace that at this time.

It is a good point though, and something I didn't think about. Would say a 7ft cable provide better speeds than a 15ft cable? I have cable btw, not dsl =)

 

Really depends on the quality of cabling. If you've got a well shielded cable from the wall to your modem shouldnt make an ounce of difference. My experience is on ADSL so I dont want to comment too much on cable as they're likely quite different, but a lot of people with ADSL limit thier connection by going from the master socket, but then using a cheap, badly shielded telephone extention cable.

What I said above stands with replacing the Cat5e cable replacement. Unless the actual switches etc are gigabit, there's no need to replace the cabling, and a lot of Cat5e will do gigabit over reasonable distances, Cat6 is just certified and tested further.

 

Your not likely to see any difference in the short patch distances. Generally the cat6 is required if your drops/lengths are over 300' or in a high noise enviroment.

 

my in-home wiring, approx 10k feet (in 72 runs) of it, is all cat5e plenum. It was installed and rung-out/tested with the aid of a Fluke NetTool. All of the runs except for one have certified as GigE capable. The patch panels are rated at cat6 as well.

 

Actually gigbit 1000Base-T is designed to run over cat-5 cabling. Cat-5e will be adequate for that speed, even at 100m distances. Cat 6 is for 10GBase-T. Cat-6a (which is what you want for Cat-6) extends distance from 55meters to 100meters (holding more true to older ethernet distance standards).

What's this mean? Unless you are running cabling through your walls, ie building a house, you will be fine with Cat-5e. Buying true cable to achieve 10gig over 100m (which is what you want to go by for a spec) means buying Cat-6A. And you want to buy 6A, not 6 if you are buying higher than 5e rated cabling. Cable truly rated at that speed is considerably more expensive than 5e. Also There's NO SUCH thing as Cat-6E. So don't get suckered into buying that.

Btw, you can't afford 10gig right now. You also won't go anywhere near saturating it.

 

Cat6 cannot be hand terminated properly to the cat6 spec for patch cables, mileage varies with patch panels/punchdown blocks but many have the same problem.

That said, if it really is the same price and its going into the wall just get the cat6, you will have slightly more extra gunk inside the cable to trim but you can use cat5e assemblies with it just fine.

In other words, no you won't see any difference using it now but if $=$ might as well future proof. Bear in mind you would have to have all the ends redone at some point to get the cat6 signal benefit, but thats simple compared to a repull.

I really doubt the price is the same though, probably a caveat somewhere. Theres many varieties of 5e and 6 out there, usually in the jacket.

As far as "mixing", it won't matter until your gear goes beyond gigabit.

 

Well, I got my monoprice cat 6 cables the other day, replaced all my cat 5e with them, and picked my jaw up from the floor after seeing the results.

Transferring an 8GB file, I averaged at 47MBps with the cat6. That's up from 10MBps with my cat 5e. that's a 470% increase, didn't change any settings or computers, just the cables.

Assuming you guys aren't dead wrong =p, I'm guessing I had a really weak cat5e cable in there somewhere, maybe a cheap/broken one or something.

 

That sounds more like it, after all 10/100 is meant to be able to do upto about 10-12MB a second, 1.25MBps is rubbish.
Gigabit networks can theoretically transfer 10x as much on top.

I'd say you definately had some unhappy cabling if thats all that changed.

 

Well it was doing 10-12 megabytes per second (not megabits) before I switched to the cat6 cables.

and now its doing about 47 megabytes per second. Hows that for gigabit ethernet? sound good to you? It even increased my wireless N speed by a few megabytes per second (MBps? is megabytes per second, idk but that's what i meant =p)

 

If its running at gigabit speeds, then that sounds about average, it depends on your kit and whats interacting

10-12 MBps is about where 10/100 should be, Gigabit can often run higher than 45 but you tend to hit limitations such as setup, read/write speeds on various machines etc.

 

Yeah, much higher and it will be hard drive that's the limiting factor.

Either way I'm very happy. My mouth hung open in amazement when I saw that 8GB file fly over to my computer.

I usually transfer things through my wireless G at 2.5MBps....never again lol

 

I've pegged about 960Mbps running gigabit speed tests through Cat-5e. You know you could have just had really crappy cables before...

 

really? i never knew.

 

Like 120MBps?? or did I do my math wrong?

Yeah the cables before were really crappy, compared to the new ones. the new ones are thick and full of wire, the old ones you could squeeze the cable and only feel like a little bit of wire in a lot of plastic. But it was mostly the stuff that came with my router and modem, so unless those were bad..

 

There is soft/flexible core wire and solid core. Solid core is much thinner. It doesn't make it any cheaper in quality or worse in transfers. Solid core doesn't need to be as thick.

Cat5e is plenty for gigabit in all but the longest runs.