A further difference within the ethernet cables whether cat 5 cat 5e cat 6 cat 6e or cat 7 can be whether solid or stranded wires are used within the cable.
Different cat ethernet cables.
Category 6 cable cat 6 is a standardized twisted pair cable for ethernet and other network physical layers that is backward compatible with the category 5 5e and category 3 cable standards.
For basic cat5 cables that s 100 million signals a second or 100 mhz.
A cat6 cable is similar to a cat5 ethernet cable it consists of four pairs of twisted copper wire.
Computer accessories peripherals.
Welcome to the cat 6 ethernet cables store where you ll find great prices on a wide range of different cat 6 ethernet cables.
A cat6 cable has a bandwidth capacity of 250 mhz for example and it offers you speeds of up to 10 gbps.
This means the cable density and quality of shielding necessary to make it work are on a whole different scale.
Let s look at the technical and physical differences in ethernet cable categories to help us decide.
Cat 6 has to meet more stringent specifications for crosstalk and system noise than cat 5 and cat 5e.
However it provides you with much more functionality.
Ethernet cables are grouped into sequentially numbered categories cat based on different specifications.
Most importantly cat8 ethernet patch cables can support a speed of 25 gbps or even 40 gbps.
Sometimes the category is updated with further clarification or testing standards e g.
Cat 3 and cat 5.
Cat is short for category and generally denotes the speed the cable is able to.
Ethernet cabling can provide a faster and longer distance approach to home networking than wi fi but don t skimp on the cables.
Both cat 3 and cat 5 ethernet cables are at this point obsolete.
Cat 5e may be popular and adequate for today s more basic.
It s also compatible with both cat5 and cat5e cables.
Cat5 cat6 and cat7 with some variations.
Cat8 uses an unprecedented 2 billion 2 ghz signals per second.
The cable standard specifies performance of up to 250 mhz compared to 100 mhz for cat 5 and cat 5e.
Cat8 cable or category 8 cable is an ethernet cable which differs greatly from the previous cables in that it supports a frequency of up to 2 ghz 2000 mhz and is limited to a 30 meter 2 connector channel while cat8 cable requires shielded cabling as well.
These days the choices comes down to a handful of different types.