Catx cables, quality, and top brands?

Goobly

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Sep 17, 2015
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I have a fairly good understanding of catx cables. However I'm attempting to do research on top brands, quality, ect. I'm having trouble though. I keep coming up with Blackbox, Monoprice, Cable Matters, and even Amazon Basics. However I'm having trouble finding reviews on the quality of each cable.

I'm assuming Blackbox is up there in quality. But a lot of what I found just sounds like it's been thrown together without a second thought.

Can any of you that has experience with a few different brands give me some advice? I'm not looking for Cat5e, please keep that in mind.
I'm either looking for Cat6, or Cat6a. I'm not looking for Cat7 though.

I know most of you will probably tell me just to go with Cat5e.
It's not too much, more so I'd rather going with Cat6 minimum.


I've been looking at Monoprice here's one I'm considering. http://www.monoprice.com/product?p_id=11234
 
The brand of the cable is hard to say, belden is one of the manufactures of cable. Pretty much if the cable says tia/eia certified the cable will work fine. You want to buy from larger retailers to avoid some of the fake cables out of china. If you are buying bulk cable the main thing to avoid is CCA cable which is not certified....but some manufacture try to claim it is. There is a lot of CCA bulk cable being sold on amazon by various vendors.

Patch cables the brand of cable wire tends to change so again a good seller is key, you don't want to buy direct imports from china. Very few patch cable sellers advertise the actual brand of wire used and most issues with patch cables are related to how well the ends are terminated not the brand of the wire itself.

I have purchased cables many times from deepsurplus if you want a retailer but it depends on the country if that is a option.
 
I wired my place with Monoprice's brand CAT6 bulk, labeled as TESTED 550mhz, 23awg, TIA 568C. One gotta question how Monoprice call sell so cheap and I haven't heard, got no proof that their cables have any kind of problem. It's been 5 years and it does give me gigabit speed. Hopefully I don't die of toxic fumes but I have no equipment to test. 🙁
 



Yeah, there's no way I'd use PVC. However I can't find prices, but I'm assuming that's because it all depends on where it is they're selling them? Another question is there Mhz rating on there cables? I'm trying to find the Mhz for specific cables. I know that the Cat6 you gave me a link to shows it's rating, but when I went looking through there other cables, and the only thing I've been finding is a transmission performance spread sheet that goes up to 750 Mhz. .The spread sheet appears to be the same on each cable I look at.
 


Yeah, there's no way I'm buying from no name brand. I'm very picky when buying things. I try to buy US products only, and I'm making sure all the specs are verified.
 


To be honest I wouldn't be to worried about Monoprice's Products. It's the shipping from them is what you might have to worry about.