We recently were able to finally get Fios in our home. I’m looking to run CAT8 Ethernet cable from my living room (where router is located), under floor/walls/etc to a CAT female to female wall plate. I need a direct line in my office which is roughly 150-200ft of CAT8. I absolutely need to have the maximum speed I possibly can. I’m very computer literate and Im very capable of wiring any kind of cable, my concern is I want to know what to buy. I’m not looking for the 13 paragraph explanation of 40 different types of cables built Narnia forged in Japan by Fuji heavy industries because it’s indoor/outdoor, I don’t care. I’m simply looking for links for someone to say use “this” click here and order “this” I’m looking for a quality CAT 8 cable and female wall plates.
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… Category 6a will get you 10 gig at 100m…
Category 8.1 (No such thing as just 8, just like there’s no such thing as 7), is for 25 and 40 gigabit at 30m, So at the distances you are talking there is no difference between category 6a and 8.1.
This seems confused. Category 8 is defined in ANSI/TIA-568-D and ANSI/TIA-568-C.2, as are Categories 5e, 6 and 6a. There is no such thing as 7 or 8.1 in that standard.
Category 8.1 and 8.2 cables and connectors are specified in another standard, ISO/IEC 11801. This one also includes Category 1, 2, 3, 5e, 6, 6a and, yes, 7 and 7a cables and connectors.
If you hence believe Category 8.1 exists but Category 7 doesn’t you are being inconsistent. Only those that think Category 8 exists and 8.1 is a fantasy can be consistent in the belief that there is no such thing as 7.
Cat8 won’t improve the speed of anything you are likely to ever have to plug into it, so I wouldn’t install it with the expectation it’ll help with that. That said, I like cat8 cables (and cat7 for that matter) for another reason: you can get cables with 22 AWG conductors that are sometimes actually 22 AWG in size and this has a significant benefit for POE where size (i.e. DC resistance) matters. I hence use it for POE devices that run hot, or might someday run hot, in particular WiFi AP locations and links between HDBaseT modems.
So I can tell you what I would buy. 22 AWG bare copper wires are between 0.64 and 0.65 mm in diameter, so I would buy cat8 (or cat7) 22 AWG cables that have conductors that size. You can’t rely on the “22 AWG” label to tell you that, however, so prefer vendors that have a spec sheet for their cable that lists the actual conductor diameter in millimeters (but measure it when you get it anyway). As for a link to cable like that, however, I can’t give you one. I bought a whole bunch of Monoprice cat8 some years ago that had 0.65 mm conductors but the same part number now lists the size as 0.60 mm, which is now, unfortunately, quite common. I was also given some cat7 cable with full size conductors but I don’t remember the brand.
That accomplished, you now need keystone jacks that actually fit on 22 AWG wires, and again you can’t trust “22 AWG” (not to pick on them, but Monoprice was at one point listing “22-24 AWG” keystones with a max specified conductor diameter of 0.58 mm). The only ones I can vouch for are these
https://www.amazon.com/Cable-Matters-5-Pack-Shielded-Keystone/dp/B074HH9RHW
which are fantastically pricey but which fit on the wires really well.
If this seems like a lot of hassle and cost for something that is realistically unlikely to provide a speed benefit you might be right. Cat6a stuff is good and not too expensive these days.