I'm unaware about anything networking and just want get the best bang for my money. Need 50ft cable.
The average person will not bottleneck cat5e, That's gigabit speeds. cat6 is even faster. honestly just buy a real of cat6 cable and some heads and cut your own cables. been doing that for years myself
Yeah, cat7 is likely more trouble than it' worth. I think it may even need to be grounded but I'm not sure about that. Just stick with cat6. Unless this is for a 10gb network you won't see any advantage to using cat7 orver 6 or 5e.
Why Cat7? Do you mean cat7a? Do you need 40Gbit Ethernet? Otherwise just go with Cat6/a or Cat5e
Cat 7 50ft is 19 bucks on monoprice.com I go there they seem pretty reliable compared to say ebay. Ignore dem 1Gbps peons their NAS box prob. doesn't transfer more than 80MB/s or have more than 2 clients.
My rule of thumb for cable selection.
Cat 5e if it's a single cable run that needs to carry gigabit for less than 50meters.
Cat 6 if it's a gigabit run but there are multiple cables (to reduce crosstalk) and upto 100meters
Cat 7 if you are going faster than gigabit or just looking for overkill and SF/STP if you are planning on bombarding the cable with all types of micro and radio waves.
But yea the best Cat 7 is the stuff that is SF/STP which stands for shielded foil / shielded twisted pairs.
Each pair is wrapped in foil, each pair are separated by the plastic twister and then the whole lot is wrapped in foil.
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Yea if money isn't an issue get this gold plated ones on amazong only 30 bucks.
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I suppose if you are laying the cables in a house (like in the walls) you'd probably want something that doesn't need to be ripped out for the next 20-30 years.
But I don't think OP is doing that.
Cat7 with snake oil shielding and gold/crystal terminals is the only cables worth buying really
EDIT: I was joking... copper is copper is copper... get the cheapest CAT5e cable you can find unless you're running HDMI over CAT6, at which point you need CAT6...
If you need cables often, buy a 1000ft roll of UTP CAT6 (solid, not stranded) for $120 from monoprice, a nice crimping tool (do not buy the cheapest crimping tool you can find, you want one you can guide the cables through and cut the off the connector end as you crimp... otherwise you'll waste a bunch of time making bad connections and over-crimping cables that won't click in...) get some RJ45 connectors that can be threaded through and some strain relief boots that are the same color as the wire you buy...
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Well my question is always cost. I looked on monoprice and the cost was negligible. If it requires grounding then go cat6, but if 100ft of Cat6=$25 and Cat7=$35 then go Cat7. If this is a budget constraint then rethink it because if $10 bucks should not be a project killer then.
And if you are running your house, double and quad every run. You can run 21 lines, then use 8 with an 8-port switch. Then upgrade your switch later when you need it and it is cheaper and newer.
Cat 7a (augmented) is the standard that we are talking about here. For the record its an official standard now I believe. Anyways yes SF/STP cat 7a which is the only thing that holds a cat 7 cable to standard because their should not be any unshielded variants or elses its just an overpriced 6a ... Anyways bottom line is there must be a ground on both ends that is common in order for the shielding to properly effective. However it is possible for it not to be grounded and still effectively shield once the shielding reaches saturation and effectively bars out all noise.
The key here is you dont need it. Are you in an extremely RF noise environment? Do you need to have low noise cabling ? probably not in a residential home unless for some reason you are running 40 GBE lol
Just get cat6a UTP if you want something up to gigabit standard and call it good.. Its cheap and abundant
You are better off getting proper copper cable than aluminum strands with a copper surface which is a lot cheaper but just performs worse. And yes that cheap stuff is nearly always aluminum with a copper coating.
So yes going cheap might not be the best option especially when you are working with longer lengths.
Seriously dude its just a house. he is not gonna notice the difference between 998 mbps and 1 gbps ... especially since he probably doesnt have gigabit internet probably... So whats the use in him getting an extravagant cable?
He should just go to some bulk cable retailer online and get 50 ft of cat6a... thats really all he needs...
since we all cant really agree... here are some links.. decide for yourself they are both good cables and you can really see the difference is minimal..
CAT6a
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16812119511
Cat 7
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16812119333
a bit pricey but if you have thunderbolt 3 stuff around the house or plan to buy thunderbolt pcie cards for 20/40Gbe networking.
Im going to get this although it's definitely overkill but I want quality and longevity. https://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/B00QEV499M/ref=aw_wl_ov_dp_1_1?colid=3LGZVO5K1T0UJ&coliid=IXNLB5LTACS5F&vs=1
Seriously dude you plan to upgrade your cables every 5 years in your house?
I perfectly understand his question and then proper cable goes a LOOOoooong way. And no that doesn't have to cost an arm and a leg but if it sounds to good to be true then it generally is. Currently most Cat7 cable is AWG23 have double shielding, one around a pair of cables and then another shielding around the whole bunch. This along with solid copper core wires.
They should be quite hard to fit in rj45 housings due to the size although a bit easier than 6a due to missing the plastic shielding Cat6/6a has. Basically they should be quite hard in winding it around a soda can. Neither Cat 6 or 7 should ever feel as feeble as Cat 5A
that is a good Cat7 cable.
oh if you are wonder what bad cable does... well instead of gbit you won't go above 100 or even 10 mbit. due to all the noise in the cable. It doesn't matter when using small lengths but at 8-10 meters you can already see the effects of crap cables.
I linked that kind of cable showing how little different the price is.. Most reputable sellers on Newegg will have decent cables
Do you have 10Gbase interfaces on both sides? Yes?
Then buy them.
else? Don't.
The maximum physical length of UTP/STP is supposed to be 100m/328 ft, except for UTP cat6 when carrying 10GBASE-T (10Gb Ethernet).
Gold plated contacts are a scam for anything. The only advantage of them is that gold doesn't corrode.
False, cat7 is still not a TIA standard, due to conflicts with connectors. If you put an RJ-45 (Ethernet) connector on it, it functions as a cat6a.
You're better off with cat6a or waiting for cat8, but it's going to be a while before it becomes as cheap and abundant as cat6a.
Perhaps he wants gigabit Ethernet for his network, which is entirely possible and would be beneficial to the internal network, depending on its purpose. It's doubtful he has gigabit internet though.
Can't we just have fiber already?
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