Guides/Gaming
Gaming and
Ethernet cables.
Why a wired connection behaves differently from Wi-Fi under load — and what actually changes once the cable is in.
It is not the peak speed.
It is the consistency.
A modern Wi-Fi link can beat a Cat 5e cable on a speed test and still feel worse in a match. Four things separate them, and only one of them is bandwidth.
Latency
The delay between an input and the server acknowledging it. Wired is lower, but the number people quote is rarely the one they feel.
Jitter
The variation in that delay. This is the one that is felt: a steady 25 ms plays better than a link that swings between 8 and 60 ms.
Packet loss
Data that never arrives and has to be sent again. On a wireless link it rises with distance, walls and traffic; on a properly terminated cable it is close to nil.
Contention
Wi-Fi shares airtime with every other device in the building. A cable does not queue behind anyone, which is what matters when you are streaming and playing at once.
Same average ping.
Completely different game.
Both of these links report about 25 ms. One of them is unplayable in a firefight, and the speed test on your phone will not tell them apart, because a speed test measures throughput and reports an average.
Steady link
Average 25 ms · swing ± 2 ms
Every response lands when the last one did. Aim, fire and hit behave the same way each time.
Link with jitter
Average 26 ms · swing 9 to 55 ms
The same average, arriving at random. The game cannot predict you, so it guesses — and corrects when it guesses wrong.
Both traces share the dashed 25 ms line. Illustrative, not a measurement of any particular connection.
A cable does not make the trace shorter — the distance to the server sets that. What it does is make it flat: no airtime to compete for, no retransmissions from a wall in the way.
Almost every setup is answered
by Cat 5e or Cat 6.
Games are not bandwidth-hungry; they are latency-sensitive. A gigabit link is far more than a game needs, so the category question is really about everything else on the connection.
| Setup | What decides it | Category |
|---|---|---|
| Console | The console’s own port is gigabit at best | Cat 5e or Cat 6 |
| Desktop PC | Gigabit is the common port; headroom costs little | Cat 6 |
| Cloud gaming | A steady, low-jitter link matters more than raw speed | Cat 5e or Cat 6 |
| Multi-gigabit router or NAS on the same link | The rest of the network, not the game | Cat 7 |
| Run beside power cabling | Interference, not speed | A shielded construction — in our range, Cat 7 |
Moving from Cat 6 to a higher category does not reduce your ping. Latency is set by the distance to the server and by the equipment in between; the cable’s job is to stop adding to it. The distances each category holds are compared in Speed and Performance.
Four things that change more
than the category does.
Go straight to the router
Powerline adapters and Wi-Fi extenders add hops and variability. A single run from the console or PC to the router beats a shorter cable through either of them.
Prioritise the device
Most routers can put one device or one class of traffic ahead of the rest. It is the setting with the biggest effect on jitter in a busy household.
Terminate properly
If you are making the cable yourself, keep the twist to within 13 mm of the connector. Untwisting further back gives away exactly what you paid for — see the Installation Guide.
Leave slack
A cable pulled taut behind a desk fails at the connector eventually, and an intermittent link looks exactly like a bad connection.
One run, router to machine.
Measure the route the cable will really take — round the door, along the skirting, behind the desk — and add a margin. Fixed lengths run from 1 to 100 metres, so there is rarely a reason to coil the excess.