Usually cat6a. It gives a good balance of cost and still maintaining support for 10gbps speeds down the line.

I’m what I would consider a power user though, odds of consumer equipment adopting 10gbps at the client level any time soon are low, so for endpoints anything above cat6 is usually a waste

They are. Just not in ways that are accessible to the general public.

There is no difference in the crimp between cat6 and cat7. None. Zero. It is the exact same process, the same pins.

Cat7 has larger conductors and specific connectors to accommodate them, but you can still make a cat6 connector work on a cat7 cable with some elbow grease.

It’s also totally pointless for 90% of use cases.

The differences in spec come from the shielding material in the cable, and the number of twists, the connectors themselves are the same standard

Yeah I have a single box 500ft box that I’ve gone through multiple residences with. Every time I need to plug something I just crimp crimp done.

I also got those passthrough connectors where you can stick the actual wires through each pin instead of having to trim them evenly, then the crimper cuts them. Makes it so much easier.

I feel like the phrasing here isn’t accurate. You crimped an RJ45 connector onto an existing cat6 cable.

You did not DIY an entire Ethernet cable.

Still a fun skill to have, I’ve crimped probably thousands of ends