If you’ve ever shopped for cables, you know what a waste of time it can be to get the wrong spec, even if it looks right. For example, buying USB-C cables can be confusing with all the different speed ratings for power and data transfer, so it makes sense to presume that Ethernet would have the same issues. But the good news is that it doesn’t. Ethernet cables are rather simple, with four twisted pairs of wires using an RJ45 connector, but the quality can vary. Still, the cables are backward compatible, so there’s really no harm in wasting money on a pricier cable.

Do you need to upgrade your Ethernet?

How fast is your switch

Most of us only have access to internet speeds right around 1Gbps, which is still plenty fast for just about anything you want to do online, such as streaming in 4K or playing games online. While the original Cat5 spec only supported speeds up to 100Mbps, Cat5e, using four twisted pairs of wires, took that up to 1000Mbps (1Gbps).

Since Ethernet cables use twisted pairs of copper, the only real question is whether the signal has reached from one end to the other with enough integrity to support the full speed of your connection. For the most part, 1Gbps works fine, even on longer runs, but with cheaper cables, you may see reduced speeds. To that point, a short Cat5E cable could even support 2.5Gbps or faster speeds if the quality is high enough.

Longer runs need better cables

If you’re looking for long-range multi-gig speeds across the house, choosing a Cat6 or Cat7 cable could help give you that full speed. Even so, the only reason you’d really need that much speed at home is for large file transfers from a home server. And you’ll need a fairly modern or fast server to come close to that speed. Also, keep in mind that a lot of NAS systems only offer multi-gig speeds using dual gigabit Ethernet with link aggregation. Still, if you’ve got a fancy multi-gig SSD-based NAS with support for multi-gig Ethernet, it could be time for some new cables.

Why wire your home?

Running Ethernet gives you the best connection

The best Wi-Fi routers and even the best mesh Wi-Fi systems have gotten very fast, but wireless signals still suffer from interference and congestion. The short version is that Wi-Fi speed and latency figures are often less consistent than Ethernet. Wi-Fi has also gotten quite fast, with even some Wi-Fi 6 devices supporting speeds up to 2.4Gbps, but that speed is wasted on most applications, keeping Ethernet the preferred choice for internet access.

For example, if you have your gaming PC or console a few rooms away from your router on Wi-Fi, you could be looking at reduced speeds, and ping times that are anything but consistent. Picking up a very fast router, like the Wi-Fi 7 TP-Link Archer BE800, or a gaming router like the Asus RT-AX88U Pro, can provide a proper QoS and plenty of power to handle it.

Even a long run across the house with Cat5e should have no trouble providing consistent gigabit speeds with very low ping to the router. No cable can help your ping to the server, but eliminating as much latency from your home network as possible can still help.

Some other things to look for in a cable

Don't waste money on marketing

Shopping for Ethernet cables can be tough, since a lot of wild claims are thrown around by sellers to make their product stand out. For most people, however, you don’t need to worry too much about bandwidth as the 350MHz supported by Cat5e is plenty for gigabit connection and sometimes faster. Note that MHz doesn’t directly correlate with Gbps, and a 350MHz Cat5e cable will easily support a 1Gbps connection.

If you’re running your cable a long distance, and it will be passing through areas with a lot of electrical interference, like through a drop ceiling with fluorescent lighting or an HVAC closet, you’ll want a shielded cable. Shielded cables are more expensive, but they can keep your connection quality high in areas with interference. Similarly, if you’re running a cable outdoors, you’ll want one that’s rated for outdoor use, so it doesn’t get damaged by weather.

If you’re running Ethernet with the intent of using POE (power over Ethernet) to power a switch or access point, you’ll need a cable rated to handle the power load.

Last but not least, pay attention to the connectors on your Ethernet cables. Old designs were infamous for snagging on other cables, leading to broken clips, but modern connectors are more robust. Most Cat6 cables, for example, are designed not to snag, while Cat7 cables have reinforced metal connectors that really hurt to step on. However, the metal connectors don’t do much more than look nice, so if you’re not planning on disconnecting your cables very often, you don’t need to worry too much about connector quality.

At the end of the day, it's just copper

For something as simple as a few copper wires twisted together, Ethernet cables have a lot of numbers and specifications attached to them. From a physical standpoint, all you really need is a connection, but with higher quality cables, you can get a cleaner connection that supports faster speeds. If you want to check and see if your older Ethernet cable works well with a faster multi-gigabit connection, you can. Once connected, your device will show the speed of your internet connection in system settings for networking so that you can compare "what is" with "what should be."

If you're not getting the full speed of your connection, its worth upgrading to a newer cable to get a better connection. But if your older cable, regardless of its category, is giving you the full network speed, there's really no reason to get rid of it.