[lug] comparing cat 5e and cat 6 cables

[Dean Brissinger]

On Monday, December 26, 2005 5:17 PM D. Stimits wrote:

> Now I know that cat 5e cables are the preferred cable for most 100
> Mbit cable. The stores tend to try to sell more expensive cat 6
> cable. I've also heard many times that cat 6 cables will sometimes
> not work as well as cat 5e on 100 Mbit systems. In the past I've
> always gone with a quality cat 5e, but I've never wired for gigabit. 
> 
> What's the story about which cable to use and when? I'm interested in
> comparing for both 100 Mbit and gigabit. 

Cat5E is all you need for 10/100/1000.  Cat6 is said to support 10G over
copper when it is common place.  If I was going to wire a corporate
building I would go with Cat6 in the walls.  Cat6 patch cables only if a
problem showed up.  But I've never had a problem with GigE speeds and
good Cat5E.  Cat6 is the next generation cable and is designed to handle
a higher spec than Cat5e.  There shouldn't be any case where a healthy
Cat6 cable performs worse than a healthy Cat5e cable.

To a vendor the difference between CAT5E and CAT6 is about 2 cents a
foot.  They charge quite a bit more than that at your local compusa
though...