What Ethernet Cable to Use? Cat5? Cat6? Cat7?

EXPLAINED: What the heck are these different cables?

If you've ever gone to buy an internet cable, you probably saw different types available. There are Cat5, Cat5e, Cat6 and others, but which do you need? Well all of these ethernet cables will work, but there are some differences depending on the speed required. In this video I go over the different types of ethernet cables and what each one does.

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[ThioJoe]

But the higher number must be better right?

[SurrtanCat]

That was so easy to digest. I actually memorized all the information immediately. Very well put together.

[mikeslovak]

Joe: 1GB is the standard now

Me with my new 10mb bandwidth "upgrade": _cries in high latency_

[xnjian]

Me: "Yeah I probably have Cat6a"
also me checking the cable: "Cat5"

[isak]

Important to add: Even the lower categories come in shielded (FTP) and unshielded (UTP) versions. Go for the shielded if you have to coil the cable somewhere, although you should avoid that at all cost. Doing so can completely kill your transfer speed.

[ActionJackson]

Thanks for talking without using your hands and no stupid intro with remixes. Subbed.

[dbpike]

Working from home like so many others today, I got tired of tripping over all the cables on the floor running back to my router. Having access from the basement, I decided to buy a switch and run a single cable under my floor back to the router. The location was close to my electrical panel and, as such, a lot of unavoidable electrical wires to cross. I first tried a long Cat 6 cable that I had strung across the floor and got a connection speed close to that of a cheap hotel wifi. I picked up a shielded Cat 7 and voila! I was getting speeds faster than what I was paying for! I tossed all my Cat 6 patch cables and replaced with Cat 7. Seems now I should have done some testing... or watched your video sooner! :) I think the main lesson was, shielding really does work. Thanks for the great channel.

[kal]

Cat7 is also highly recommended for industrial applications where electrical "noise" from motors, contactors/relays, and such like can not only interrupt the data connection, but in extreme cases could also damage the NIC on either or both ends. Cat7 has each pair shielded, and the whole bundle shielded.

Cat8 may never be needed as everything is moving to fibre anyway which has higher data rates than any of them, zero cross talk and zero EMI risk. Once cost's come down fibre ethernet will be in homes eventually.

[thomaspeautre]

The shielding is shown with UTP, FTP or STP mark, written on the cable.
UTP : Unshielded Twisted Pair
FTP : Fielded Twisted Pair
STP : Shielded Twisted Pair

STP is the best.

[channelsixtyseven]

I've got one Cat-6A installation in the wall of around 10 metres. It was put in when Cat-6A had just become available. I won't be pulling through a new Cat-7 cable with it. A 10m cable run isn't going to make much of a difference for my use. Everything else, will be done by a router from now on. Excellent video.

[HexylvaniaFilms]

This was like the most honest review ever.

[jcarey]

You made a pretty good attempt at covering this. The one big error is touting cat 7. Cat 7 was never recognized by the TIA or Bicsi. It came out with a proprietary connector (GG45), then an option to terminate on RJ style connectors Each pair within the cable is shielded in Cat 7. It was a train wreck. Cat 6A ratified after 7, and was what 7 should have been. All category cables are performance rated at 100 meters, except for Cat 8. They were initially rated in MHz carried (while having positive electrical attributes like crosstalk and attenuation), instead of megabits or gigabits of bandwidth carried. Goofy, I know. But higher MHz capacity equated to higher bandwidth in throughput.

Summary:
Cat 5e = 100 MHz with 100mb typically, and 1Gb on good installs with good 5e (quality matters)
Cat 6 = 250 MHz with 1Gb, not 10G
Cat 6a = 500 MHz with 10G throughput at 100 meters. It's the defacto standard for today's professional structured cabling installations.
Cat 7 = 600 MHz and Irrelevant, as it's not used anywhere. If you get a "cat 7" cable off Amazon or somewhere, it's likely a Chinese shielded 5e or 6. Cat 7 relies heavily on shielding in the cable, while 6a does not require that. There are shielded options for all other previous "cat x" categories, but they're just options for high interference installations.
Cat 8 = 2000 MHz with 25G and 40G throughput, but at only 30 meters. Data center application for shorter distances. Not for workstation applications.

[TheSlugJones]

Wait...this is....its actually correct information.

[BWGPEI]

Thank you - very nicely done. FYI - we did CAT5e on the whole house years back and have had excellent speed and reliability out of that cable. It can handle a great deal more than we get from our ISP (NOT bitching about that). The wireless side of our system has be a lot more trouble and I really appreciate the CAT5e side.

[ericprice]

I noticed by biggest difference moving to shielded cables. Switching from CAT 5e to a full blown CAT 6 S/FTP cable gave me an increase of just under 50%. I also replaced the manufacturer supplied modem cable (we mostly still have regular ADSL lines where I am) with a shielded cable with RJ11 connectors at each end and the overall line speed increased by nearly 80%.

[PierceMD]

Obviously, setting up my 7 cats in alphabetical order would improve the efficiency of feeding.

[JohnDoe-djxh]

I've found that in my experience CAT 7 is also super important if you have for example a multi node rack mount server with the nodes talking to each other over these cables especially if you have 3 or more nodes as the number of these wires sending different information in extremely close proximity leads to reliability issues without sheilding.

[alecsharp]

Super-useful. I wired my house with Cat5 23 years ago but only terminated a few runs. I’m finally. getting around to terminating more, and your video made me feel it won’t be a total waste of time. Thank you - excellent content, brilliantly presented.

[Mister]

I had to roll out Cat7 cable in a nursing home where the original data cablers messed up and ran Telco everywhere instead of Cat5e as specified. The data ducts where all closed up so we had to trace the cables along the power lines (nursing home, no drilling allowed once the residents moved in). Unlike previous standards, the internal shielding of Cat7 allows it to be run alongside power cables. Super-expensive work-around but the only option we had at the time.

[papilloneffect]

This is that dude that breaks peoples computers with his troll videos.