Going gigabit ethernet, cheap or expensive hardware?

[redrumloa]

Guys, I want your opinions. I've already ordered quality cat6, recepts, patch cables etc. What I am considering now are the gigabit desktop cards & switch and/or router.

I was about to buy some cheapos from Compusa online:

This switch and these adapters.

What I'm starting to ponder is there anything I'm missing to why I should not go cheap on these? Not having done a buttload of research, I'm wondering if these may be substandard product? I can certainly find much pricier parts. Anyone have experience going gigabit?

I'm hoping my RR-Net doesn't freak out when confronted with a gigabit network ;-)

[redrumloa]

seer wrote:
But why go giga ? Any  reason ?

I did my old FL house with cat 5 and 100Mbit equipment. I found the speed to be quite slow for our usage. This new house has nothing, and WiFi sure as s*** aint gonna do it! Pissing me off actually :angry: So.. I'm going to spend a few extra bucks to go gigabit instead of 100Mbit :-)

[redrumloa]

Wow.... What were you doing?

To be sure wasn't every day I'd saturate a 100Mbit network, but when I did, it was annoyingly slow :-) It's not unusual for us to have 5-6 computers on the network. Besides what you mentioned (3-4+ computers trying to transfer Q3 update at once), we share BIG files across the network. Stream movies, host MAME games on one computer and play on others. Even some MAME roms are big, makes it slow to launch from another on the network.

I'll tell you what was really slow.. 10Mbit from an Amiga.. If I buy another compatible it will be a Pegasos II(or III)..

[redrumloa]

@BinoX

Yes I did consider cat 5e. I decided against it since running gigabit across cat 5e is pushing it's limits. That is fine for now, but not future proof. The cat 6 goodies I bought were not much more than the cat 5e counterparts, so it wasn't too difficult of a choice :-)