Best place to buy ethernet cables?

[Mike64]

Monoprice is not bad on shipping for just a single cable. I bought cables from them and shipping is cheap.

Huh. I seem to be on a misinformational roll tonight. I dunno what it was then, about the specific order I put together a week or so ago - for a couple of network and HDMI cables, but I could've sworn that even for single items the shipping was much higher, certainly the total shipping I got for that order made it more expensive than ordering simlarly spec'ed, not "totally generic" Chinese imports, on Amazon...

 

[[DHT]Osiris]

Guys. 2005. That post was made in 2005. Shipping costs might have changed in the last 12 years.

 

[Mike64]

Guys. 2005. That post was made in 2005. Shipping costs might have changed in the last 12 years.

Actually no, I was the one who mentioned what I'd found to be high shipping (though I hadn't looked at it for a single cable), and I posted without looking past the post or two just above mine to realize it was a necro-thread in the first place...

 

[Raizinman]

I put my home network together with regular CAT 5 cables. I have probably 5 or 6 cable runs, routers, swtiches, modems, etc. There are lots of short runs of cables. I'm on Time Warner at 300 mbps. Is there any benefit to going with CAT 6e cables? They are very cheap on the Internet. Would I notice a speed increase?

 

[[DHT]Osiris]

I put my home network together with regular CAT 5 cables. I have probably 5 or 6 cable runs, routers, swtiches, modems, etc. There are lots of short runs of cables. I'm on Time Warner at 300 mbps. Is there any benefit to going with CAT 6e cables? They are very cheap on the Internet. Would I notice a speed increase?

Nope.

 

[mikeford]

Cheap, find a recycler that gets lots of wire and is willing to sell as well as buy.

Bad choice IMHO, good known quality cables are cheap enough with no tangle molded ends etc, not worth the potential trouble from a cheap cable.

 

[jackstar7]

Just throwing this out there, but I've switched to Cat6 and Cat7 in the last year. Several things work better now, particularly my router.

And I just used Amazon, as I have prime.

 

[Staples]

I put my home network together with regular CAT 5 cables. I have probably 5 or 6 cable runs, routers, swtiches, modems, etc. There are lots of short runs of cables. I'm on Time Warner at 300 mbps. Is there any benefit to going with CAT 6e cables? They are very cheap on the Internet. Would I notice a speed increase?

If I remember correctly, CAT5 is rated for 100Mbps. CAT 5e is rated at 350Mbps. If true, you may be limiting your internet bandwidth.

 

[Macgyversite]

Not really. Find a server/modem/router that will constantly give you 100mbs download. What is 4k content streaming? 28mbs? 1080p 5mbs? I have Comcasts "Top" home tier in my area @ 150d/l and 10u/l. I can never max out or get close to maxing out without lag and such.
5E to me is the sweet spot for home networking for the average person with a already set up network. Cat6 certainly is better being gigabit capable. Unless you are constantly sharing large large large files on your Intranet....... 5/5e all work well for most people.

Since 6 and 7 are fairly cheap nowadays. Its a no brainer to start from scratch with these. Will you see the extra bandwidth capability ? Depends what you do.

 

[alaricljs]

Network cable speed measurements are based on 100M max length and a few other details.

Cat5 is 100Mbps
Cat5e is 1000Mbps (ie: 1Gbps)
Cat6 is 10Gbps with a lower max length of 55M, or 1Gbps at 100M
Cat6a is 10Gbps at the full 100M length

So Cat5e is all the 99% need for home networking even with a NAS in the house.