Question on Cat 5 vs. Cat 5E

[ahsia]

I needed to run about 150ft-200ft of cable in my house, and I just bought 1000ft of Cat 5 cable from Fry's (on sale for $30), but really forgot to do some research on this. Should I have gotten Cat 5E? Is there that much of a difference betwee 5 vs. 5E?

 

[Mark R]

There is very little difference between the two.

Both are absolutely fine for 10 Mbps and 100 Mbps ethernet. Cat5 is acceptable for Gigabit ethernet - but Cat5e is recommended because it is less likely to fail if there are kinks in the wire, or bad connections.

I wouldn't expect anyone to have a need for gigabit ethernet in the home, so the fact that cat5e is slightly better is moot. Of course, if you are chasing the wire into the walls and under the floors and don't want to rip it out in 5 years time, then maybe it would be sensible to consider Cat5e or Cat6 cable.

 

[septiroth]

yeah, I agree with mark, i dont forsee any need for gigabit ethernet for at least 5 years, and if you install 5 non-e and run a cable test on it, i'd bet it'll even run gig, so it would work for 10years(i guess 🙂 )
if you are not happy with 5non-e I would just go straight to cat6 just for the hell of it

 

[ahsia]

Cool... I bought this just because it is such a good deal, 1000ft for $30. I plan to make cable just for temporary setups, not for wiring a house or anything. This should be perfect.... thanks guys!

 

[redbeard1]

Check the printing on the cable, it may already be cat5e rated. There is a noticeable difference in the signal capability of 5 to 5e to 6. The jump from 5e to 6 is huge. We a have very expensive tester at work, and the results are most noticeable in the bandwidth that the cable can pass through. 5 to 5e is not going to be a big deal in a house with a few connections however.

 

[Joony]

Originally posted by: redbeard1
Check the printing on the cable, it may already be cat5e rated. There is a noticeable difference in the signal capability of 5 to 5e to 6. The jump from 5e to 6 is huge. We a have very expensive tester at work, and the results are most noticeable in the bandwidth that the cable can pass through. 5 to 5e is not going to be a big deal in a house with a few connections however.

Which tester? Fluke?

 

[redbeard1]

Fluke 4100. It's a spendy toy🙂

 

[InlineFive]

Cat5e runs at 350Mhz and supports Half-Duplex Gigabit where as Cat5 does not if memory serves. Can someone confirm this?

-Por