February 21, 2023

Bring 5 Gig Speed to Your Gaming and Watch What Happens

Bigger, better, faster—that’s 5 Gig fiber. It’s the biggest, best and fastest internet connection you can get. But even if it seems wildly unnecessary/more than you could ever need/way too much, remember, when it comes to video gaming, there’s no such thing as overkill! Here’s why you should consider getting 5 Gig for gaming.

What is 5 Gig fiber?

5 Gig fiber is an ultrafast fiber optic broadband connection with symmetrical speeds of approximately 5 Gbps download speed and 5 Gbps upload speed. For context, according to Speedtest.net, the median connection in the U.S. in December 2022 had a download speed of around 193 Mbps and an upload speed of just 22.5 Mbps. No doubt, a 5 Gig connection is next-level fast.

If you wanted to download a 10 GB file, say, you could do it in 16 seconds on a 5 Gig connection, but it would take you around 7 minutes with an average 200 Mbps connection. If you’re uploading a file, the difference is even starker. It would still only take 16 seconds on your 5 Gig fiber connection, while it would take close to an hour on the way slower 22.5 Mbps one.

What internet speeds do I need for gaming?

Okay, so now the complicated bit—what speed does your internet connection need for the best gaming?

Well, to play an online shooter like “Fortnite” on your console or PC, the absolute minimum speeds are 5 Mbps download and 3 Mbps upload. If instead you want to use and excel on a cloud gaming service like Nvidia GeForce Now, then it’s recommended you have at least 45 Mbps download to play games in the highest resolutions. A 5 Gig connection obviously smashes these minimums out of the park.

But gaming isn’t really about upload and download speeds. There are other stats that matter more. Read our explanation of the importance of lag, ping and latency and how they affect your gaming. These are basically the time it takes for a data packet to go from your computer to a server and back over the internet. For online gaming, it’s super important, because every single thing you do has to get sent to the server hosting the game—and you’re racing against every other player.

Let’s say you turn a corner in the latest “Call of Duty” and see an enemy facing you. Imagine that things align so that you and your opponent notice each other at the exact same time, then press the trigger at the exact same time. One of you is going to win and one of you is going to die. The winner is the one whose button-press gets sent first to the server running the game. It all comes down to ping. If yours is 30 milliseconds (ms) and theirs is 80 ms, the server will get your action first—and so it will assume you acted first.

You win, they die, and all because you’ve got a great low-latency connection. (To test your ping, you can use Speedtest.net or Fast.com.)

But how do you get a good ping rate? Well, with a great connection—especially a fast fiber one like 5 Gig. And the faster the better. The FCC’s most recent report on broadband speeds found that higher speed connections had the lowest latencies because it takes less time to transmit data. In particular, DSL connections had idle latencies of 22–36 ms, cable connections were 12–22 ms and fiber connections were just 7–13 ms.

It’s important to note that latency changes based on what service you’re connecting to, so you’ll see different ping speeds for different games. Around 50 ms is good for most games, and anything over 100 ms is going to affect your ability to play. But the lower the idle latency of your connection, the lower your ping in any game is likely to be—all else being equal.

What difference does a 5 Gig connection make to my gaming?

Okay, so a blazing-fast 5 Gig connection is great for gaming. It’s got all the bandwidth you could want, and it’s likely to offer the lowest ping of any connection. But what’s all that mean in the real world? Well, here are some things you can do with a 5 Gig connection that will amp up your gaming experience:

Host a huge gaming party. Why not bring back the LAN party vibes of the early 2000s? A 5 Gig connection has enough bandwidth that a dozen of your friends will be able to play with peak performance.
Start streaming. With a 5 Gig connection, you’ll be able to livestream your gaming on Twitch, upload videos to YouTube Gaming and keep playing—all without your connection slowing down.
Stop worrying about other people on your connection. With a 5 Gig connection, there is enough bandwidth that everyone else in your home can stream 4K movies all at once and your ping won’t be affected. A 5 Gig connection will let you use your connection when you want, how you want.

A note on your gaming setup: check your loadout

To make the most of 5 Gig fiber, you’ll need to think about how your home network is set up. The connection is so fast, a lot of older devices won’t be able to make the most of it. Even the PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X only have Ethernet ports that support 1 Gig.

To make sure your home network is capable of handling 5 Gig speeds, check out our article on making the most of a multi-gig internet connection. You’ll need a super fast router, and you’ll need to upgrade your devices so they support Wi-Fi 6 or really fast Ethernet speeds.

Experience a future of wins with Frontier Fiber

When you’re uploading and downloading to play, give yourself the fiber advantage, including Fiber 5 Gig. Frontier Fiber was rated #1 internet service provider for online gaming in the country, according to U.S. News & World Report. Ready, set, Frontier Fiber! Check here to see when it’s available at your address.

Product features may have changed and are subject to change.