Ethernet Cable Speed Test 2024: Cat 5e vs Cat 6 vs Cat 8

I speed tested every ethernet cable type and this is what I learned so guys before we get started which cable do you think perform the best cat 5e cat 6 cat 6A cat 7 or cat 8 leave your answer in the comments below and then watch until the end of the video to see if you're right or wrong and the results are going to shock you I guarantee you're going to be wrong cat 5e cat 6 cat 6A cat 7 and Cat 8 ethernet cables all have different bandwidth transfer speeds latency and Jitter but how do we know exactly how fast these cables really are because we just don't trust what it says on the box right well in today's video we're going to speed test all five ethernet cables using ierf 3 and this test will reveal the transfer speeds bandwidth bidirectional bandwidth and we'll test multiple streams and lastly UDP Jitter and then we can easily see which cable or cables is best for our situation oh and guys and gals don't forget to like share subscribe and comment it's completely free thanks if you're not familiar with ierf 3 also known as internet performance working group is basically a free open source speed test and network performance measurement tool this mechanism is very simple ier 3 creates TCP and UDP streams and sends traffic from one host to another and then reports maximum bandwidth and other data to the user pretty cool and did I mention it's free so first let's do the quick setup for the speed test you'll need two PCS to connect both ends of the e cable to both ends of the network interface cards on both PCS so first download and install ierf 3 on both PCS unzip the files on both PCS you now have the I 3 program file so on pc1 find the ier 3 Program highlight it then go to the address bar and type in CMD and hit enter now ierf 3 has started go ahead and type in ier 3 space- S and hit enter pc1 is now in server mode and is listening on Port 5201 and F1 Yi this is the port by default we could change the port but we're not going to do that we're going to keep it simple now on PC2 start ier 3 the same as you did on pc1 then type in ier 3 space- c space and the IP address of the server this will make PC2 the client but how do you find the IP address of pc1 well it's simple go to pc1 and do a simple ip config or you can check the network settings for the IP address so our IP address is 1921 68.1 225 and there's a good chance your IP address will be different in FYI your maximum transfer speeds will be the max of your two pc's network interface cards or the lesser of the two for instance if pc1 has a 2.5 gig Nick and PC 2 has a 1 gig Nick then the max speeds will be 1 gig today we're using two PCS with two 2.5 gig Nicks so our Max speeds will be 2.5 gigs if you're fortunate enough to have 10 gig Nicks on both PCS then you will see 10 gig speeds from some of these cables regardless these tests are very important not just for maximum speeds and maximum bandwidth but also for Jitter B directional bandwidth and testing multiple streams and this will help determine which cable is best for your situation all right our first speed test is Cat 5 okay this is PC2 and we need to disconnect from the internet we can now plug in cat 5V into our 2.5 gig network interface card and we'll plug the other end of the cat 5V into pc1 like I said before this is a 2.5 gig Nick as well and you want to make sure that both Port lights are active and they are now we can start the test our first command is a basic bandwidth test type in iperf 3 space- c space and the IP address of the server then hit enter and by default this test lasts for 10 seconds and you can make it longer or shorter if you want to in 10 seconds the Cat 5 cable transferred 2.7 GB with bandwidth at 2.37 gbits per second okay now let's test for multiple streams on the keyboard hit the up Arrow then space Dash uppercase P space then four for four streams and you can choose any number you want we just chose four in the summary at the bottom shows the exact same numbers as the last test all right next test once again hit the up Arrow backspace then add an uppercase R this is a bidirectional bandwidth test in the Cat 5 transfer 2.74 GB with bandwidth at 2.35 GBS per second once again hit the up Arrow back space lowercase U this test is for UDP Jitter and this is our final test the cat 5e Jitter is1 199 milliseconds and the cat 5e has zero loss okay our second speed test is cat 6 Riser cable so I'm not going to bore you with showing you the rest of the cable testing because it's the same process plug an ethernet cable into both PCS and then run the same four commands in I perf 3 however I'm going to show you the results because that's the most important part right and here are the results of all four tests the first test the basic bandwidth test all five cables were the same Plus or Min -01 the multiple stream test all the cables were the same plus or minus 01 for the bidirectional bandwidth test once again all the cables were the same plus or minus 01 and for the last test UDP Jitter well this was the deciding factor because all cables perform differently so which cable did you pick at the beginning of the video that you thought performed the best was it cat 5e cat 6 cat 6A cat 7 or cat 8 well the results are going to shock you and you're not going to believe it and the best performing cable goes to cat 6 Riser cable huh that's right cat 6 performed the best out of all these cables when it came to all four categories from basic bandwidth to bir directional bandwidth running multiple streams and Jitter all the cables were the same except for one category and that was UDP Jitter and the number we got for this cable was1 120 milliseconds and zero loss and coming in second was cat 8 with1 35 milliseconds and zero loss coming in third was Cat 5e at1 199 Ms with zero loss and coming in fourth was cat 7 with Jitter at1 198 millisecs and we have one packet loss and coming in last was cat 6A coming in at 219 milliseconds and remember all these cables are less than 6 ft long so when it comes to longer distances the higher end cables will perform much better but yeah guys I couldn't believe C 6 Riser cable one out I would have not picked it my best bet would have been cat 6A or cat 8 but that's why we do these tests and guys thanks for watching make sure to like share subscribe and comment and for God's sakes hit the Bell icon and I'll see you in the next video real soon high five peace