sundance-communications.com/forum Forums Wiring - Telecom Carriers - Trunks & Services Cabling Telephones Systems Wiring CAT 5 vs CAT 6. What is the real difference?

Hello.

I'm considering wiring my house with CAT 5E or CAT 6 cable and I have a few simple question.

I am literally trying to find the actual differences that I need to consider before diving in and committing 100% of a particular cable type?

Please keep in mind that I’m in the very early stages of researching this.

1. If both have speeds of 10/100/1000 mbps than why spend the extra money on CAT 6? Does CAT 6 have future applications that do not exist with today’s network cards?

2. Do all 10/100/1000 switches support both CAT 5E and CAT 6 cable or are it possible it will only take CAT 5E cable but not CAT 6?

3. Do the standard network cable testers which test proper pin configuration or shorts, etc.. work on both CAT 5 and CAT 6 or only CAT 5?

4. Do all Gigabit network cards support both CAT 5E and CAT 6 maybe one of these?

5. Does CAT 5 and CAT 6 use different cable tips or wall jacks when configuring?

6. Is CAT6 backwards compatible with CAT 5 devices?

Thanks for your help.

CAT 6 is rated 'beyond gigabit'. I don't know what the actual max speed is. CAT 6 uses the same wiring sheme as cat 5,5e.

Moved original thread from networking, and Walker I owe you an apology, Since SST had already posted a response to your question I decided to move your original thread and delete the new one you started here. In the process I inadvertently deleted your other post about audio cable. My deepest apologies, please repost that question as it was not removed on purpose. Sorry :rolleyes:

I think in your case, it's just a matter of preference. The incremental material cost probably isn't that much. On the other hand, I doubt that you would notice any difference between the two. If it were my house and I was doing the work, I would probably go with CAT6 only because I can do it myself. Who knows what the future holds but for a couple of hundred bucks, why not go with CAT6? As for your questions, not to be harsh but none of them really matter for what you're talking about.

Ok, so you are using the same

1. RJ-45 connector tips for CAT 5E and CAT6?
2. Same Gigabit Switch?
3. Same Gigabit Ethernet Cards?
4. Same Cable tester can be used?

So the major difference is the CAT 6 has stricter specifications and maybe a little thicker gauge wire however everything else is the same?

Please let me know if I understand what your saying correctly?

Sorry if these sound likes a dumb question but I'm in the early stages on this.

Thanks

Actually, CAT6 is a slightly larger gauge, it's 23 AWG where CAT5/5E is 24 AWG. The CAT6 plugs aren't the same though, although they physically look identical. Also, remember that in order for the installation to be 100% CAT6 compliant, even the patch cables must be CAT6. It's probably going to end up being overkill for your application.

Other than that, as it's already been said, you'd probably never notice the difference except in handling the wire itself.

Yes, you can use the same:

Gigabit switch
Gigabit ethernet cards

The 8P8C connectors for Cat6 are different.

I don't know about the cable tester, it seems to me that if the cable tester doesn't support Cat6 it won't be able to verify that the installation actually meets cat 6 specs.

Some Gigabit cards have a built-in cable tester, such as the ones that use the Broadcom chipset. This cable tester only verifies the performance of the cable installation at gigabit speeds.

I am running Gigabit on cat5 (yes, just cat5, not cat5e) and it is working just fine and passes the cable test built into the card.

Anything that works with CAT5 will work with CAT6 but this will not be the case in reverse. You can use the same tester to test for shorts and pin assignments. Yes, the jacks and plugs are different but terminating them is the same.

Are you going to do this or are you going to pay someone to do this? I can see where the price increase may seem more significant if you are paying someone to do this. In the end, if you're talking about less than $500 difference for your entire house, I'd go for it. If you're doing it yourself, you're probably only talking half that.

So even through the plugs are different, I can still use them on CAT 5 devices.

For example, if I have a standard 10/100 network card in my PC or laptop. I can plug in the CAT 6 cable and it will both physically fit and be able to connect to the network(expect at 100 Mbps instead of 1000 mbps)?

So my only concern seems to be the cost of the cable for CAT 6 vs CAT 5?

This is for my own personal house trying to move large files quickly across my network. I have a 240 feet of fish tape and conduits in my house. It seem like my next step is deciding on the type of cable I need. I have a mix of computer with Gigabit cards and 10/100 network card devices(which can't be upgraded).

I just needed to make sure that using CAT 6 cable was not going to lock my older devices out of the network.

Thanks for your help.

Anything that works on Cat3, Cat5, or Cat5e will work just fine on Cat6.

The Cat6 connector is a standard 8P8C connector (also known as an RJ45).

Bear in mind that to get the most out of gigabit, you'll need to enable jumbo frames..which will break compatibility with your 10/100 devices. They cannot handle jumbo frames.

If you do not enable jumbo frames, you can still expect a speed increase--I'm seeing 180mbps with the standard 1500 byte frame size.