which one to choose Cat5 cable or Cat6 cable?

Once only seen in the workplace and in geek’s homes nowadays a network of some kind can be found in a lot of homes. The influx of digital devices in to our everyday lives has seen the usage of networking become far more commonplace than it used to be.

Nowadays you will see them connecting all manner of things together sharing resources such as internet connections or simply sharing photos, movies, music or data between them. For some people this can lead to a number of problems but one that comes up time and time again is “What is the difference between Cat5, and Cat6 cable” and which should I choose?

While Cat5 cables have been around for many years now the newer and updated version Cat6 cable has only become commonplace more recently. Developed to handle the demands of the modern digital era in which we live with gigabit (1000mbs) speeds at minimum and up to 10 times that are on offer. While Cat5 cable can manage up to 100mbs which in its day was considered fast, as you can see above this is not so any longer! There is also another option that being an enhanced version of Cat5 cable known as Cat5e cable this offers greater speeds of up to 1000mbs and greater data integrity than its earlier version.

Often time’s people think that by plugging faster network cables into their equipment that you will see better performance. This is far from true as a network is only as fast as its slowest component so if you use a Cat6 cable then you will not see the blazingly fast 10gigabit data transfers that you were hoping for unless your other equipment is capable of also transferring at that rate.

Even though the more modern Cat5e cable and Cat6 cable may look identical to the earlier Cat5 cable inside there have been a few changes going on which have allowed for this greater speed and security. In particular with Cat6 cable the reason behind it is the way that the wire cores are protected they are all shielded from each other for the full length of the cable. This allows there to be less interference between them and improves the throughput greatly.

So which to choose Cat5 cable or Cat6 cable?

If your equipment will support the newer Cat6 cable then for sure that is the one to choose or if you are planning on upgrading existing equipment in the future then definitely go for Cat6 cable. If however you're equipment is not up to gigabit specification and you are not planning on upgrading then you could probably get away with the older Cat5 cable.