Friday, September 17th 2021
ASUS ROG Joins the Expensive Cables Club with ROG CAT7 Cable
Cables, why is it that some people are so fixated about them? We've seen companies like Monster Cable base their entire business around them, yet most people don't even seem to know why they're buying expensive cables. Asus has now joined the club of expensive cable sellers with its new ROG CAT7 Cable, which has started to appear in various markets around the world.
In all fairness, Asus isn't asking for thousands, or even hundreds of dollars for their ROG branded cables, but a 1.5 metre cable will set you back in the region of $22, whereas a longer 3 metre cable comes in at around $37. An ROG branded velcro tie is included in the box as the only accessory. We're not sure that nylon braiding is going to be useful on an Ethernet cable, but Asus is at least using shielded FTP wires (although Asus say STP on their site), which suggests it should be a decent quality cable at the very least. It's worth keeping in mind that CAT 7 isn't recognised by the TIA/EIA as part of the Ethernet standard and offers no real world benefits over CAT 6A on a 10 Gbps or slower network.
Source:
Asus
In all fairness, Asus isn't asking for thousands, or even hundreds of dollars for their ROG branded cables, but a 1.5 metre cable will set you back in the region of $22, whereas a longer 3 metre cable comes in at around $37. An ROG branded velcro tie is included in the box as the only accessory. We're not sure that nylon braiding is going to be useful on an Ethernet cable, but Asus is at least using shielded FTP wires (although Asus say STP on their site), which suggests it should be a decent quality cable at the very least. It's worth keeping in mind that CAT 7 isn't recognised by the TIA/EIA as part of the Ethernet standard and offers no real world benefits over CAT 6A on a 10 Gbps or slower network.
56 Comments on ASUS ROG Joins the Expensive Cables Club with ROG CAT7 Cable
While Asus have been making the best consumer motherboards for years, but like with many companies with some brand recognition, most of their peripherals are just cheap white label products from a third party.Cheaper for sure, but why do you need Cat 7 S/FTP for a short patch cable?
The benefits of shielding and pair separation come into play for longer stretches of cable. For shorter patch cables, even a quality Cat 5E is going to be sufficient for 10 Gbps.
Just because Cat 5E isn't certified for 10Gbps, doesn't mean it can't run it.
You can find various tests showing that it work just fine for shorter cables, at least up to 10m if the cable is decent.
I also recommend watching this, to see how ridiculously thin cables are capable of 10Gbps.
The differences between Cat 5E and Cat 6/6A come into play when the cables are long enough.