Is Cat6 worth it?
Is Cat6 worth it?
You're considering whether to purchase Cat6 cable now that you've just moved into your new home with Ethernet running throughout. Given your experience, you likely have plenty of Cat5e cable on hand—enough to cover the house multiple times. The longest run seems to be about 15 meters since the networking closet will be in the center. While Cat6 supports 10Gbps, you probably don't need that speed for typical home use, and Cat5e can handle it just fine for short distances.
You could reuse existing Cat5e connections instead of purchasing new ones. If you must buy, consider Cat6—it's only slightly pricier unless you need plenum cable. For runs under 15 meters, Cat6 isn't necessary unless you're planning longer distances. As @dalekphalm mentioned, if you don’t want to replace everything in a decade, go for a larger upgrade now.
For a brand new home where you plan to avoid handling cabling for a long time, compare costs of Cat 6, Cat 6a, and Cat 7. Avoid Cat 6e—it's not an official standard and may not work as expected. If moving from Cat 6 to Cat 6a is affordable, do it. If the upgrade to Cat 6a is cheap, proceed. For a jump from Cat 6a to Cat 7, go with that. At this stage, skip Cat 5e entirely.
Imagine you’re taking apart a whole house and trying to run wires inside. It makes sense to choose the top-quality cables available.
Yeah, your comment wasn't there at first. I was just starting to type when I hit post. When I saved the edit to add you, it moved your message above mine, lol.
#timetravel. @Tsuki we are from... The Future! Agreed - the cost of the cable isn't even the major component here, it's the amount of labour involved (whether you do it yourself or pay someone). If you're gonna go through the effort, I would personally get the best cable I could afford. Oh, apparently there's a Cat 7a revision too that I didn't know about - but I'm assuming it's stupid expensive still. At work, our cable guys that we hire still run Cat 6a for everything. @yolosnail you can always hang onto the Cat 5e for patch cables, or in case a family/friend needs some cabling.