Is Cat6 worth it?

[yolosnail]

I've just got a new house and will be running ethernet throughout. Is it worth going out and buying Cat6 cable?

From previous projects I have loads of Cat5e cable left over, probably enough to do the whole house twice over.

The longest run will probably only be around 15m as the networking cupboard will be in the centre of the house.

I know that with Cat6 I could do 10Gbps, but I don't really have a need for it, and if I'm not mistaken, for short runs Cat5e can run 10Gbps perfectly adequately. 

 

[Tsuki]

if you have tons of cat5e laying around, i would just use that instead of buying new stuff. But if you do have to buy it, you may as well get cat6, its not that much more expensive unless you're getting plenum cable.

 

If the longest run is only 15m, you dont NEED cat6 unless you're looking at closer to 100m runs.

 

but like @dalekphalmsaid, if you dont want to redo it 10 years from now, go big now

[dalekphalm]

2 minutes ago, yolosnail said:

I've just got a new house and will be running ethernet throughout. Is it worth going out and buying Cat6 cable?

From previous projects I have loads of Cat5e cable left over, probably enough to do the whole house twice over.

The longest run will probably only be around 15m as the networking cupboard will be in the centre of the house.

I know that with Cat6 I could do 10Gbps, but I don't really have a need for it, and if I'm not mistaken, for short runs Cat5e can run 10Gbps perfectly adequately. 

 

If this is a new house, and you don't want to touch the cabling for years (if ever), I would do a cost comparison of the following:

 

Cat 6 vs Cat 6a vs Cat 7.

 

DO NOT USE CAT 6e - Cat 6e is a "fake" cable type and there is no industry standard to guarantee what you'll end up with.

 

If the price of jumping from Cat 6 to Cat 6a is small, I would do it. If the jump from 6a to 7 is also small, I would just go with Cat 7.

 

I would, at this point, not even bother with Cat 5e.

[Tsuki]

4 minutes ago, dalekphalm said:

snip

wtf.. you posted before me why is mine first....

[dalekphalm]

1 minute ago, Tsuki said:

wtf.. you posted before me why is mine first....

Haha - when I posted my reply, yours was already there (but when I started writing it, you hadn't posted yet, so I didn't see the reply until I hit post).

 

*shrugs* quirks of forums.

[AshleyAshes]

I mean, if you just about an entire HOUSE and you're going through the effort to fish wire through it, it seems silly to not use the best cable you can.

[Tsuki]

Just now, dalekphalm said:

Haha - when I posted my reply, yours was already there (but when I started writing it, you hadn't posted yet, so I didn't see the reply until I hit post).

 

*shrugs* quirks of forums.

yea yours wasnt there was i starting typing, but was above mine when i hit post. when i saved the edit to add you, it moved it above yours lol

[2FA]

3 minutes ago, Tsuki said:

wtf.. you posted before me why is mine first....

 

1 minute ago, dalekphalm said:

Haha - when I posted my reply, yours was already there (but when I started writing it, you hadn't posted yet, so I didn't see the reply until I hit post).

 

*shrugs* quirks of forums.

You guys are breaking the time line, please stop before you destroy the universe.

[dalekphalm]

1 minute ago, 2FA said:

 

You guys are breaking the time line, please stop before you destroy the universe.

#timetravel. @Tsuki we are from... The Future!

 

3 minutes ago, AshleyAshes said:

I mean, if you just about an entire HOUSE and you're going through the effort to fish wire through it, it seems silly to not use the best cable you can.

Agreed - the cost of the cable isn't even the major component here, it's the amount of labour involved (whether you do it yourself or pay someone). If you're gonna go through the effort, I would personally get the best cable I could afford. Oh, apparently there's a Cat 7a revision too that I didn't know about - but I'm assuming it's stupid expensive still. At work, our cable guys that we hire still run Cat 6a for everything.

 

@yolosnail you can always hang onto the Cat 5e for patch cables, or in case a family/friend needs some cabling.

[Tsuki]

2 minutes ago, dalekphalm said:

#timetravel. @Tsuki we are from... The Future!

it must be a timezone thing

[dalekphalm]

2 minutes ago, Tsuki said:

it must be a timezone thing

Nah, most likely we posted near simultaneously, and it was a caching thing.

[Tsuki]

Just now, dalekphalm said:

Nah, most likely we posted near simultaneously, and it was a caching thing.

so we can blame @Windspeed36?