What type of Ethernet cable should I use?

[usmc21]

I'm building a new desktop and want to run a long ethernet cable about 30ft. I have a old linksys e1000. What do all the Cat's mean? Which one would you recommend? Thank you.

Edit: want to add that this is just for home use!. Thanks!

 

[airplanegeek]

Cat 5e or Cat 6 cable would be sufficient. The numbers basically mean version and speed.

 

[usmc21]

Cat 5e or Cat 6 cable would be sufficient. The numbers basically mean version and speed.

Is there a performance diff if I were to get a 50ft rather than a 30ft?

 

[bill001g]

The speed is controlled by the port you plug it into. As long as the cable is meets the specs for the port it will run at full speed. A cat5E rated cable can run up to 1gig. A cat7 cable which is rated to 10g will still only run at 1g if you connect it to 1g ports. Pretty much you can buy the cheapest cable you can find since almost everything is cat5e or cat6 you can find in the consumer market. You will see no difference in the performance between cat5E and cat6 because again it is the port in the machine that controls the speed not the cable. If you were to buy something like cat3 cable it would not run slower it would either get lucky and run at 1g speeds or completely fail.

If you want to get very technical cable length does impact the time it takes. This is sorta why when you ping a location in another country the latency is higher. Still this is only for those who over analyze things. Data travels in copper cable at a speed somewhat less than the speed of light. So how much time does it take light to go a extra 20ft. The number is so small these type of delays are not even detectible compared to much longer delays in say hard drive latency or even memory read delays.

 

[airplanegeek]

Of course the speed is controlled else where, but the cable needs to handle all the traffic. A Cat 3 cable will definitely limit performance if you have a 10mbit/s connection or more. The cable is a highway, sure you can have lots of cars wanting to go through it, but if it is only 1 lane is would be very slow. Newer cables also have better shielding from things such as crosstalk. A cat 5e cable should be the cheapest you consider, its also really all that is necesssary. And there will not be a noticeable impact from getting a 50ft cable.

 

[Kewlx25]

As long as you aren't running your cable parallel to power sources or have some strange electrical interference, you should be able to run a CAT6 cable up to 330 feet and still get 1gb/1gb.