Cat5: older, slower

Category 5 cabling, also known as Cat5, is an older type of network cabling. Cat5 cables support theoretical speeds of 10Mbps and 100Mbps. You may be able to get gigabit speeds over Cat5 cables, especially if the cables are shorter, but it's not always guaranteed.

Since Cat5 is an older cable type, you probably won't see it in stores much, but you may have bought some with older routers, switches, or other networking equipment.

Cat5e: faster, less distracting

Category 5 Enhanced Cabling, also known as Cat5e, is an improvement over Cat5 cabling. It supports 1000 Mbps "gigabit" speeds, so theoretically it's faster than Cat5. It also reduces crosstalk, the interference that can sometimes be experienced between wires within a cable. These two improvements mean you're more likely to get fast, reliable speeds from Cat5e cabling compared to Cat5.

Cat6: Faster, but not super necessary

Category 6 cabling is the next step up from Cat5e and includes many more improvements. It has tighter specifications in terms of interference and is capable of speeds up to 10 Gb in some cases. You probably won't be using these speeds at home, and the additional interference improvements won't have a huge impact on regular use, so you don't really need to rush to upgrade to Cat6. However, if you're going to buy a new cable, you can do so too, as it's an improvement over its predecessor.

So which should you use?

It's important to note that your network speed is not the same as your internet speed. The chance to upgrade your cable won't make a difference to how quickly you can load Lifehacker or Facebook -- your internet speed will still be much slower than your network. However, if you're transferring files between computers (for example, if you're backing up to a NAS), using gigabit-compatible hardware can make things go much faster. Remember, you'll need more than cables -- to get gigabit speeds, you'll also need a gigabit-compatible router and a gigabit-capable network card in your computer. Most modern routers and cards already have these fast speeds, but if you have any older PCs or routers, they probably won't. Google your hardware model number to find out.