which is better cat6 or cat5e

[alpha_2000]

im wanting to get an Ethernet jack installed installed in my place but i dont know which is better what are the pros and cons of cat6 vs cat5e im mostly wanting to do gaming multimedia etc

 

[bigpinkdragon286]

Both are capable of 1 Gbps wire speeds, so unless you plan on needing higher speeds than that, you might factor cost into your decision. Gaming and multimedia won't use more than a fraction of gigabit Ethernet, so either cabling will be sufficient there.

 

[InvalidError]

Cat5e is good enough for 1Gbps Ethernet up to 100m, no need to pay for more than that if that's all the speed you'll ever use. If you want to upgrade to 10Gbps Ethernet at some point in the future, you should be looking at cat6a instead of cat6.

Cat5e has 100MHz of bandwidth, cat6 is 350MHz and 6a is 500MHz and required for 10GBase-T.

 

[R_1]

cat5e fastest speeds are 1 gigabit ethernet - 15yrs old
cat6 reduced crosstalk, better SNR, 10 gigabit transfer speeds - newer

cat6 is backwards compatible with cat5e and cat5