Cat 5e or cat6 and which brand?

[pillguy]

Hi Guys,
Am looking to upgrade to a wireless N router and have to re-run some cable to set up the router.
There are several websites that have it, but what should I really get. I am looking at solid wire in either Cat5e or cat 6 without breaking the bank here.
Please advise and let me know where you got it.

 

[george_tlc]

What distance?

If 20' or so, just get whatever is cheap and available at the local store. I have a Fry's <1 mile from my house and I just use the cheapest junk they have.

cheers,
george.

 

[retrofive]

bang for buck for this type of stuff cat5e. belkin or whatever.
It really won't matter in your home.

 

[NLXTACY]

If 20' or so, just get whatever is cheap and available at the local store.

^ this

I had to make the distinction between those two when wiring up my house. The company I used to work with did all the fiber transceivers for the Verizon Fios product. Since I was in the middle of remodeling I got lucky enough to have fiber optics plumbed throughout the entire house. Crazy throughput going fiber but at the end of the day the bottle neck was still the curbside connection. Everything internally connected from the fiber-to-copper converters were all tested on Cat5e and for everything we tested Cat6 brought no noticeable differences on throughput for the data we were streaming and for the distances we were going.

So by all means, save your money.

 

[pillguy]

30'-50' runs

What distance?

If 20' or so, just get whatever is cheap and available at the local store. I have a Fry's <1 mile from my house and I just use the cheapest junk they have.

cheers,
george.

 

[Big Green]

i seriously doubt you can distinguish between cat 5e or cat 6, the best way to get better performance out of your network is to have a router capable of running dual channels, my runs at 5 and 2.5 ghz. I have 10-12 items connected at any given time (i like tech), this enables you to run multiple things, at full speed at much better bandwidth. This is what you will notice, not the speed of your cables.


The best upgrade is the router, Cat 5e is still a decent cable, unless everyone is going to download movies on multiple devices at once, buy what ever is cheaper


For me i have a 20 foot cat 5e run from my modem to an apple time capsule, never any bandwidth issues and I'm a multimedia junky

 

[george_tlc]

Hi Guys,
Am looking to upgrade to a wireless N router and have to re-run some cable to set up the router.
There are several websites that have it, but what should I really get. I am looking at solid wire in either Cat5e or cat 6 without breaking the bank here.
Please advise and let me know where you got it.

30'-50' runs

Those are relatively short distances, just use whatever is easy to find and cheap. Don't overthink it.

Your Wireless N is slooow compared to 1gb/s ethernet anyway. i.e. your bottleneck will be the Wifi and your connection to the internet/WAN, not your LAN wiring...

cheers,
george.

 

[sdnative]

If you are going to wire your house (.i.e. inside your walls), I would consider the CAT6 for the obsolescence factor if it's not considerably more expensive. Technology is always changing and I would want the infrastructure to support it as long as possible. This would be a longer term investment. When I wire my home this summer, I will be using CAT6.

If you are just using patch cords to run around your office, then get whatever.

 

[pillguy]

Hi Guys,

Thanks for the comments. Right now, I think I am going to stick with Cat5e cable and go from there. Price is better, as one response said, the bottleneck is going to be the router.
Most of the key components set up, ROKU, Computers, are hardwired and I want to keep it that way if possible.
I know Cat6 would be the better way to go, but $$ is a bit tight.
Right now, I have a Linksys wrt54g in the basement with another (wireless disables upstairs in the den) I get a signal in the bedroom to surf mud, netflix, etc. i just want to boost the signal a bit.

THe new N router would go into the kitchen princess: territory), but it is the most central area in the house and I want an equal signal up and downstairs.
My question, can I use one of the old G routers for extra ports off the N router or am I screwing things up?

 

[Elbert]

DIR-655 Dlink router...I've been using one for some time now without issue. Get an 8 port or so non-managed switch for extra ports...they are not that expensive. The device will have instructions on how to "daisy-chain" the switch to the router and what ports to use in order to do that. Unless you go with the ATT uverse fiber internet then cat 5 will be good. Belkin is a good brand, but you'll need to buy off the internet to find could prices unless you have something local worth looking at. Most of the office supply places are high on netowrk cable.

 

[cody c]

CAT 6 is best suited to long lengths of cable where speed is really important, and then the difference is small.

CAT 5e unless you find 6 for the same price.