What to look for while buying a CAT5 cable

[world_of_make_b]

I'm interested in buying a CAT5 cable to stop the lag spikes while I'm playing Call of Duty 2. To what do I have to pay attention? And is there an estimated price for a high quality cable?

 

[raybay]

Look for Cat5e plenum grade cable with molded connectors. Do not use any hand-made connections unless you have them tested. There is a lot of quality loss in the connectors... but not much difference in the cable, though the big difference is between solid core and stranded wire.
Solid core is far the best, but has very little flexibility.
If the cable is rated at 1000-TX, 350Mhz, 24AWG, with solid copper connectors, you are getting what you need. Gold plating is a plus, but be sure it is quality gold plated stuff, or you are just wasting your money.
Hand-crimped connectors is not nearly as good, as machine crimpted then rubber molded.
There are several good brands available with a Gurgle search.

 

[Nodsu]

CAT5E is a standard. All CAT5E cables fit that spec. Ethernet is a standard. It is designed to run at full speed (up to gigabit) and range (up to 100m) with CAT5E cables. So yeah, there is not much to pay attention to other than convenience (soft and flexible stranded wires vs rigid solid ones) and human error (the ***** who did the crimping). All the premade cables you buy at a store are with molded plugs.

Of course, some people will tell you that you need gold plated connectors and shielding and whatnot. All that is either for non-ethernet usage (home audio) or for extreme conditions (long cable runs outside).

 

[Eddie_42]

Id doubt the Cat5 is a source of lag. Those mostly come from game servers, ISP servers and routers. the time between your computer and the router is in the nanosecond range, if even that high. Of course don't buy the cheapest one, due to longevity, but theres no need to get crazy about it.