Differences between Cable Types

CyberPower offers these types of the cable: Category 5e, Category 6, FireWire®, Parallel, and USB 2.0.

Category 5e Cable is a twisted pair cable for carrying signals. It is used in structured cabling for computer networks such as Ethernet. The cable standard provides performance of up to 100 MHz and is suitable for 10BASE-T, 100BASE-TX (Fast Ethernet), and 1000BASE-T (Gigabit Ethernet). Cat 5e, which improves upon the crosstalk specifications of Category 5 Cable, also carries signals such as telephony and video.

Category 6 (Cat6) Cable is a standardized cable for Gigabit Ethernet and other network physical layers. It is backward compatible with the Category 5/5e cable standards. Compared with Cat 5 and Cat 5e, Cat 6 features more protection for crosstalk and system noise. The Cat 6 cable standard also provides performance of up to 250 MHz and is suitable for 10BASE-T, 100BASE-TX (Fast Ethernet), 1000BASE-T/1000BASE-TX (Gigabit Ethernet), and 10GBASE-T (10-Gigabit Ethernet).

Firewire or FireWire® Cable (IEEE 1394) can transfer data between devices at 100, 200, or 400 Mbit/s. The cable’s maximum length is limited to 14.8 ft. (4.5 meters), but you can have up to 16 cables daisy-chained by using active repeaters, external hubs, or internal hubs. The original release of IEEE 1394-1995 is now known as Firewire 400.

Parallel Cable
Parallel cables connect parallel printers, scannes, and other peripherals to your computer.

USB 2.0 Cable
The fastest USB cables available today, USB 2.0 cables connect your high-speed USB peripherals to your computer.