Has anyone else bought Fiber store Cat8 ethernet cable

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am4593

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Feb 20, 2017
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Has anyone else bought Fiberstore Cat8 ethernet patch cable? I bought some recently as I was looking for some quality shielded cables in the 7-10ft range and their cat 8 cables were cheep. $3.50-$4.50. After checking these out today I noticed that these cables are 26 awg thick. Having felt some cat6A recently, and I have some cat 7 cables, I thought these cables were a little thin. Then I looked online and saw that monoprice advertises their cat 8 cables as a heavier 24 awg. their 7-10ft cables are $17-20 each

I understand that less than accurate claims of cable quality are not uncommon but I've always understood fiber store to have a pretty respectable name and wanted to know what other peoples impression of these cables were.

I dont even think they are 40GB copper NICs with RJ45 connection out so testing line speed on these is impossible at this point.

Cat8 Patch Cables, Ethernet Rj45 Patch Cords| FS.COM
 

KC8FLB

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Aug 12, 2018
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I am guessing there is not any advantage to these cables unless hardware is made available to take advantage of them.

I ran a bunch of cat 6a at home thinking that 10gbase-t copper nics and switches would be plentiful and affordable. They are not. Maybe in five more years.

I am now buying surplus 10g fiber nics and switches and running that instead for the devices I need to run 10g on (workstations/nas/servers)

Fiber won the race because it is lower power and latency compared to copper.

Not sure about 40gbase-t but I would imagine zero adoption in the Enterprise unless it solves the power and latency issues or big workstation companies start selling integrated 40gbase-t in the workstations.

We have almost zero 10gbase-t in the home/consumer markets now as well.

Hopefully within the next decade this stuff will become mainstream, but I am not holding my breath.
 

am4593

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Feb 20, 2017
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Agreed. I am mostly fiber, but i needed some Ethernet cables here. In looking some more I do see some ridiculous "cat8" cables on amazon that are 32awg. I understand that thicker cable is not always required for improvements over last gen cabling, that other higher quality manufacturing methods can improve cables enough to make them sufficient for a new standard, yet thicker awg is usually reassuring.
 

mstone

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Mar 11, 2015
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a 7-10 foot patch isn't hard to rerun, so there is zero benefit to future-proofing (murphy says it'll get squashed and killed anyway). by the time you might need it, it'll be standard and cheap--buy one then.
 

am4593

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Feb 20, 2017
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I know, thats why this "cat8" cable cost me $3.5 and why I bought it instead of the $20 cat8 cable monoprice is selling. Just looking for some insight as to the legitimacy of this cables claim to be cat8 when its 26 awg which seems a little thin.
 

KC8FLB

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Aug 12, 2018
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I think the cat8 cable isn't going to be any better than a cat 5e cable at short "patch cable" lengths. Many have reported stable 10g links with cat 5e at short and medium lengths.

The differences should be apparent and noticeable at longer lengths based on rating/standards.

I am guessing that they could sell cat5e cable rebadged as cat 8 cable for short lengths and nobody would notice any practical differences in performance.
 

mstone

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Mar 11, 2015
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cat 8 specifies 22 to 26 awg for patch cords and 22 to 24 awg for permanent cable. At 26 awg the patch cord total length is derated from 8m down to 4m. (28M total channel instead of 32m total.) So 26awg 10ft cables are within spec, but not if you use one on each end of a run. The 49ft/15m 26awg cables are out of spec but might work as a direct connection.

A lot of cables are just ridiculously overpriced.
 

KC8FLB

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Aug 12, 2018
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What is the practical application of a cat cable that supports 2000 MHz?

Are there copper nics that can link at higher than 10g where this might be useful?

I see that it supposedly supports 25 and 40g links, but who makes hardware to support those speeds? Do 25/40/50g copper switches and nics exist?

Is this for longer than 100 meter runs?

I am just trying to understand the application for cat 8.

Thanks