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The short answer
Cat 6 handles 10 gigabit up to 55 metres, which is far more than any home connection needs and more than any home run is long. Cat 7 and Cat 8 are aimed at data centres and bring no benefit on a domestic network. Buy Cat 6, buy the right length, and spend the difference on a flat cable if it has to run under a carpet.
Ethernet cable is one of the easiest purchases to overthink. The categories sound like they should map to speed the way broadband packages do, and in practice the category you need is determined by two things only: the speed of your equipment and the length of the run. For essentially every home, that answer is Cat 6.
What the categories mean
- Cat 5e: gigabit up to 100 metres. Still perfectly adequate for a gigabit connection, and widely installed. There is no reason to buy it new when Cat 6 costs the same.
- Cat 6: gigabit to 100 metres, 10 gigabit to 55 metres. The right default for a home.
- Cat 6a: 10 gigabit to 100 metres, thicker and stiffer. Worth it only for long runs at 10 gigabit, which almost no home has.
- Cat 7: uses a connector standard that consumer equipment does not use, so cables sold as Cat 7 with normal connectors are outside specification anyway. Skip it.
- Cat 8: designed for very short data centre runs at 25 and 40 gigabit. Irrelevant at home and expensive.
The important point: a higher category cannot make a connection faster than the slowest device in the chain. A Cat 8 cable between a gigabit router and a gigabit laptop gives you exactly one gigabit, the same as Cat 5e.
Check your router’s port speeds before buying anything. Many routers and most ISP-supplied boxes have gigabit ports, and some budget models still have 100 megabit ports on some sockets. A 100 megabit port caps everything regardless of cable.
Solid or stranded, shielded or not
Stranded cables are flexible and suited to patch leads between devices. Solid core is for permanent runs inside walls and is stiffer, with better performance over distance. For a cable running from a router to a TV, stranded is what you want.
Shielded cable exists for electrically noisy environments and needs proper earthing at both ends to work as intended. In a home, unshielded is correct, and incorrectly earthed shielded cable can actually be worse than none.
Cables worth considering
Cable Matters snagless Cat 6 Ethernet cable, 25ft
The snagless boot is the detail worth paying for, because a snapped retaining clip turns a good cable into one that falls out of the socket. Twenty five feet covers most router-to-TV runs in a typical house with enough slack to route it tidily.
Jadaol Cat 6 flat Ethernet cable, 50ft with clips
Flat cable is the reason many people finally wire a TV or a console: it sits under a carpet edge or along a skirting board without looking like an installation. The included clips matter, since the alternative is a cable loose across a floor that will eventually be pulled out.
Amazon Basics RJ45 Cat 6 Ethernet patch cable, 10Gbps
There is very little to differentiate a correctly made Cat 6 patch cable, which is exactly why a cheap one from a reliable source is a sensible buy. Choose the length carefully, since excess cable coiled behind a cabinet is the main practical downside of buying long.
Cat 6 Ethernet cable, 100ft long run
The most valuable cable in many homes is the one that carries a mesh node’s backhaul upstairs. A single long run turns a wireless mesh into a wired one, which is the biggest improvement most home networks can make. Cat 6 is well within specification at this length for gigabit.
Cable Matters snagless Cat 6 Ethernet cable, 3ft five-pack
Short patch leads are the unglamorous purchase that makes a network cabinet usable. Using a three metre cable to connect two devices sitting next to each other is how cabinets become impossible to work in, and a pack of short ones fixes that permanently.
What we liked
- Wired is faster and more stable than any Wi-Fi
- Cat 6 is inexpensive and more than sufficient
- Flat cables run neatly along skirting
- One wired backhaul transforms a mesh network
What we didn't
- Running cable through a house is the real work
- Higher categories cost more and add nothing at home
- Cheap cables sometimes use aluminium conductors
- Excess length creates clutter behind furniture
Things worth knowing before you buy
Measure the route, not the distance
Cable follows walls and goes around doors. Measure the path and add 20 percent, because a cable that is slightly too short is useless.
Avoid copper-clad aluminium
Some very cheap cables use aluminium conductors with a copper coating. They are more brittle, have higher resistance and fail with power over Ethernet. Look for pure copper stated explicitly.
Do not run Ethernet alongside mains cable
Where they must cross, cross at right angles rather than running parallel for a distance.
Do not kink or over-bend it
Twisted pair cable relies on its geometry. A sharp bend or a cable tie pulled tight degrades performance in a way that is hard to diagnose later.
Test with a real transfer
Copy a large file between two devices rather than running a speed test, which only measures your internet connection and not the cable.
Will a better Ethernet cable make my internet faster?
Only if the current cable is faulty or you have a connection faster than gigabit and a Cat 5e cable on a long run. Otherwise the cable is not the limit, your broadband is.
Is Cat 8 worth buying?
No, for a home. It is designed for very short high-speed data centre links, and no domestic equipment can use what it offers. Cat 6 covers everything a house will do for years.
Are flat Ethernet cables worse than round ones?
For typical home lengths, the difference is not measurable. Flat cables use a different internal geometry and are fine at gigabit over normal distances, and they are far easier to run neatly.
Do I need shielded cable?
Not in a home. Shielding is for electrically noisy industrial environments and requires proper earthing at both ends to work. Unshielded Cat 6 is the correct domestic choice.
How long can an Ethernet cable be?
One hundred metres for gigabit, which is far beyond any house. Beyond that you need a switch in the middle or fibre.
The short version
Buy Cat 6, pure copper, snagless, in the right length for the route rather than the straight-line distance. Choose flat if it has to run along skirting or under a carpet edge. Ignore Cat 7 and Cat 8. And remember that the single most valuable cable in most homes is the long one that gives a mesh node a wired backhaul.
