However if you ve ever shopped at an electronics store you may have encountered some terms that aren t very familiar such as cat5 cat5e and cat6.
Cat5e network cable speed.
Cat6 cables also called category 6 or cat 6 cables provide lower crosstalk a higher signal to noise ratio and are suitable for 10gbase t 10 gigabit ethernet while cat5e cables support only up to 1000base t gigabit ethernet.
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 recommended maximum length cable run length is 90 meters of cable backbone and 10 meters of patch cables.
Cat5e provides a bandwidth of 100 mhz performance though.
It can support either 10mbps or 100mbps speed with a bandwidth of up to 100mhz which was the first fast ethernet capable to be introduced.
Category 5 enhanced cables can deliver gigabit ethernet speeds of up to 1000 mbps.
Every connection in your network needs to support the 1 gb speed and in some cases the connection will need to be told in software to use the available speed.
Cat5e cabling speed the speed of cat5e cabling supports high performance networking.
Cat5e and cat6 cables are both backwards.
As a means of future proofing your network cat6 is generally a better choice and worth the small premium in price.
Cat5e cable is completely backwards compatible with cat5 and can be used in any application in which you would normally use cat5 cable.
Cat 5e is an enhanced version of cat5 that adds specifications for crosstalk see below.
Cat5 ethernet cable speed.
So what is the difference between cat5 and cat5e network cable.
Rather these cables are used to send and receive data at the speeds your internet is capable of as per your internet provider or from one computer to another in a network in which case hardware can affect speeds.
Cat5 cables will work for network connections that are under 100mbps while a cat5e cable.
Cat5e cable according to ansi tia 568 2 d has a maximum speed capability of 100mhz and 1gb gigabit up to 100 meters 328 feet.
Cat5e twisted pair cable is newer and supports faster data transmission rates than cat5.
Now back to the performance.
The following is the overview of ethernet cable speed of cat5 cat5e cat6 cat6a cat7 and cat8.
Devices connected by the cable including switches and routers should also support the desired data speeds.
Cable technology is backward compatible.
The max speed of cat5e cable at 100mhz is what you should expect.
Network support cat 5 cable will support 10base t and 100base t network standards that is it supports networks running at 10 mbps or 100 mbps.
Category 5 cable was revised and mostly replaced with category 5 enhanced cat 5e cable which did not change anything physically in the cable but instead applied more stringent.
The cabling industry improved this cable and created the cat5e which is an enhanced version of the cat 5.
Neither a cat5 cable nor a cat5e cable will make your internet connection faster.
Cat5 ethernet cable is the oldest type of these cables.