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What are the differences of Cat5 Cat5e RJ45 and what do they do?

Thanks for nothing Cliff3. Your information was too complicated for me to understand. It gave me a headache so I had to nap for 15 minutes!
 
Cat 5e is cat 5 with a slightly improved design that should result in less crosstalk (electromagnetic interference). If you just have a 10Mbps network (unlikely, unless you have an old router/switch/hub), it won't make a difference, but Cat 5e might perform better if you have a 100 Mbps network. Additionally, if you have gig (1000 Mbps), I don't even think the original Cat 5 can handle it, but Cat 5e can. Basically, between the two, Cat 5e is your better bet. (I think it's actually difficult to find original Cat 5 cable these days, but I could be wrong.)

Cat 6 is going to be more expensive and probably not worth it unless you are laying non-easily-replaceable wire, say, through your house (or unless you don't find the cost difference that significant). It might handle gig a bit better than 5e, but both are perfectly acceptable; cat 6 (unlike 5e) is expected to work with future 10 Gbps networks, but I assure you that will not matter, especially at your house, for some time to come. :D As for the differences, it's basically the same cable, but it improves the speficiation to further reduce crosstalk and noise--but all three of these cables are made with the same number of wires, same materials, and are backwards compatible.

Basically, your best bet is probably 5e.
 
Cat 5 & 5e are just different versions of the same thing basically. go with 5e.
RJ45 is the Head. (RJ11 is the phone jack head)
 
Thanks for all your efforts but I just asked the same question some time ago on Yahoo! Answers and got two way better answers and every detailed I needed in less than two hours. I'll just save non Mac/Apple related questions for an other community....
 
n459umb4786ers said:
Thanks for all your efforts but I just asked the same question some time ago on Yahoo! Answers and got two way better answers and every detailed I needed in less than two hours. I'll just save non Mac/Apple related questions for an other community....
Click to expand...

when anyone says Yahoo Answers on MR, i immediately think of TS. (and also thgoldenmackid & unspokendemise haha) :p
We're not Yahoo! Answers, either.
Click to expand...
 
n459umb4786ers said:
Thanks for all your efforts but I just asked the same question some time ago on Yahoo! Answers and got two way better answers and every detailed I needed in less than two hours. I'll just save non Mac/Apple related questions for an other community....
Click to expand...

Why would you ask again, then, since you claim to have gotten everything you needed already? (Also, not that I don't trust Yahoo! Answers, but at least for non-technical questions, sometimes people post the most ridiculous answers. I trust you got a good one. :))

But if you're concerned over what the difference is between the cables, I'd also assume you have some reason why you care. If you're just curious because you're building a network, like most people, all you really need to know is that newer versions (5 -> 5e -> 6) have stricter specifications to reduce crosstalk and increase the maximum theoretical speed of the network on which they can be used (although beyond 5e it won't really matter for home). That has been answered for you here, so I don't see what the issue is. If you have any reason to care about anything more (like ohms/impedance and MHz/speed), then you clearly already have enough knowledge to figure this out on your own--or read the Wikipedia article (it's all in there, and you can use the magical table of contents to skip to just the parts you want to read) or Google it. But again, none of this is going to actually matter for the average person.

Sorry you were expecting something different, but glad you have the information you need anyway!

EDIT: Sorry if this comes off as slightly rude (although so your Yahoo! Answers comment). I don't mean to be, but, really, there must be a reason you care (which you should probably state to help out people who are trying to help you) if you need to know any more information than the basics, which are reduced crosstalk and theoretical higher-speed compatibilities.
 
with replies like yours, maybe you should save all your other questions for somewhere else. Way to be a jerk.
 
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