Will Cat 6 Ethernet cable improve my performance over my 'Killer Wifi wireless'?

[Papa Ronnie]

Any feedback would back great appreciated.

[Papa Ronnie]

In this case is it better to be wired or wireless?

[Reaper]

I'm confused. Are you asking whether a cable will affect a wireless connection?

[Start_Running]

Wired is generally always better.
Fewer confounding variables.

[Mailer]

A Cat-6 Ethernet cable implies that you intend to hook up your computer directly to a switch/router, correct? If so, this won't improve your wireless circumstances.
It will give you a better wired option, which is more reliable.

CAT-6 Ethernet is perfectly operational on its own, and so you won't need a wireless "Killer WiFi" card; but you can use both wired and wireless means at once for maximum reliability.

[invision2212]

yes wired connection is always better

[iceman1980]

Ethernet doesn't have to contend with contention. Put simply WiFi will "debate" between other access points as to when the medium "wireless channel" is clear for transmit. If you have lots of access points / routers transmitting on the same wifi channel, CSMA-CA (Carrier Sense Multiple Access Collision Avoidance) will monitor the medium.

WiFi will suffer a lot of this contention with lots of wifi channels around. You are also subject to, Absorption, Reflection, Freespace loss, multipath loss and Refraction.

Ethernet overall is a more "stable medium" and free of most interference unless of course you have something nearby operating on the same frequency range. So 125Mhz.

WiFi is subject to all types of inteference 2.4Ghz band is a very crowded signal space. And the 5.0Ghz is not much better.

Ethernet cables you can shield from interference. Also to make ethernet completely immune to any and all EMI you can use the 802.11az and 802.11ah extensions allowing for multimode or singlemode fibre.

[Hare+Guu!]

Wireless is always better outside of aesthetics.

[Carlsberg]

Originally posted by Hare+Guu!:

Wireless is always better outside of aesthetics.

wireless may be easier but not better. even though in some cases with 5G wireless can be faster, wired will still be better.

[iceman1980]

In summary, Ethernet is superior in terms of performance, while WiFi (Wireless Fidelity) is better in terms of mobility, but potentially sacrifices performance depending on a multitude of factors.

[vadim]

Originally posted by Minron21:

In this case is it better to be wired or wireless?

Wired connection is always faster. It cannot be slower just because your access point connected by wire anyway. But if two cables support the same connection protocol, it doesn't matter at all what is ypur cable category.

[_I_]

for home networking at gigabit speeds, cat5e is all you really need
for shorter distances (<15ft) cat3, 5 or 5a can work at gigabit speeds

if running cable in a new house or walls, go with 6a or better, since it will handle higher speeds with future devices when needed

[Overseer]

So how reliable is your killer WiFi? Does it hold <1 ms consistently? If not go wired for gaming.

[Dr.Shadowds 🐉]

All you need is Cat 5e they're basically everywhere you can buy them, your internet does not magically improve just by using higher tier cat cable, over Cat 5e.

The only reason why you go up cat tier, is wanting a higher bandwidth, or needing a larger range of support, if you have to carry wire across your home. Example Cat6 is good upward to 55Meters long cable for 10Gbit, while Cat6A is good upwards to 100Meters for 10Gbit. Cat5e is ideal that perfectly fine for 100meters for 1Gbit.

There no such plans of 10Gbit, so you either have 1Gbit, or lower tier plan for speeds. That why Cat5e is all you ever need for Internet.

Wired connection is always better than wireless, because there significantly less interference, you have better connection connecting directly to modem, than using wifi, and better than using hot spot router to wifi to your modem. So go get a measuring tape, and see how far you need to run your cable to your modem, make sure to add some metres as well to have wiggle room if you made a mistake.

[Mailer]

Another small detail about the jump from CAT-5 to CAT-6 is the protection against cross-talk inside the cabling, although this tends to make the cabling much less flexible as a result.
I do still also think that CAT-5 will probably be good enough for you, whereas CAT-7 is more or less exclusively used within companies, I think.

[[N]ebsun]

Wired is generally better, unless you have a really old setup like a slow hub (rather than a switch) with many clients all connected.