Hey I have a question. I have a Tanix android box. I ran a speed test on it with a cat6 Ethernet cable because I have been getting some buffering, my internet service is 100mbps. When I run a test I get a download of 37mbps but when I use a Ethernet cable and run a test on my laptop I get a download of 95mpbs. My question if I get a cat8 Ethernet cable will my internet run faster to my android box? Thanks
Probably that Android box. CAT 5e can do gigabit. Buying a CAT8 cable is not going to fix anything. Shoulda got a proper Android TV device like a Mi Box or Shield and not some random Chinese junkbox.
Short answer: No.
Long answer, any cable from Cat 5e and up will be more than sufficient for gigabit Ethernet. Even an older Cat 5 cable will suffice for 100Mbps, and may work for gigabit. You will not see any upgrade from going to higher-end cables, as at that point, your router is the limiting factor; no home router is going to have NICs faster than gigabit, and even most industrial ones have a limited number of 10g ports meant mostly for bridging network equipment. And even if you did, that'd only apply to devices inside your home network; your internet service provider would still be a limit, and consumer ISPs top out at gigabit.
In your case, I think your limiting factor is your device. I'm not familiar with the Tanix (we mostly discuss Android TV devices here, not generic Android devices), but it's possible that it has a 10/100 NIC, not a gigabit one. That would mean that its theoretical maximum speed would be 100Mbps, and there would be other things using that bandwidth (any communications it sends out, overhead from packets/frames/etc), which is why you're only getting 37Mbps. Your laptop likely has a gigabit NIC.
How long is the cable?
You only need cat8 cable if you plan on going 40 gigabit speeds since that's what cat8 is rated for. If your ISP offers 40 gigabit downloads then I want to move there!
To be serious though.. at 100 mbps speeds, you can use cat3 cable and still get full speed on it.
I'm guessing you using wifi on the tanix box? Wifi speeds will always be lower than ethernet speeds.
Are you using the same cable to test your laptop? If not, it could just be a bad cable. Cat6 is more than enough for 100mb service.
Or that offbrand android box just has a really bad nic.