If you have a modern router and modern ethernet enabled devices you can get faster speeds 10 gb s for cat 6a instead of the 1 gb s for cat 6.
Cat 5 cable gigabit speed.
The old fashioned cat 5 cable is no longer a recognized standard but it technically supports gigabit speeds just not well.
If you have gigabit internet 1gbps an old ethernet cable will hold you back.
For most purposes gigabit ethernet works well using a regular ethernet cable specifically the cat5e and cat6 cabling standards.
The new 2ghz speed limit finally category 8 is the new.
If you have a slower connection perhaps 10 or 20 megabits per second you re good with anything cat 5 or newer.
Cat 6 and cat 6a cables are more interesting.
If you are having problems achieving gigabit speeds and you have cat 5e cables in the mix then it is safe to assume that those specific cat 5e cables are not gigabit capable.
Fortunately those are only necessary for long distances.
Cat 6 supports 10 gigabit ethernet only up to 164 feet of cable length.
This is almost certainly the issue.
Category 5 cable cat 5 is a twisted pair cable for computer networks since 2001 the variant commonly in use is the category 5e specification cat 5e the cable standard provides performance of up to 100 mhz and is suitable for most varieties of ethernet over twisted pair up to 1000base t gigabit ethernet.
The category 6 augmented cable standard or cat 6a was created to further improve the performance of cat 6 ethernet cables using cat 6a enables 10 gigabit ethernet data rates over a single cable run up to 328 feet.
Cat 5e cable is enhanced to reduce interference so that it can reliably.
In other words only some of those old cat 5 cables are good enough to be cat 5e cables.
If you have only tried a cat 5e cable you owe it to yourself to try a cat 6 cable.
Cat 5 is also used to carry other signals such as telephony and video.