I ended up doing some tests myself, and the results were... frankly appalling.
TLDR: Throw out the cable.
Now on to some science.
To address some concerns that were stated in the comments - the initial testing was done on a undamaged cable - I only cut it open after the speed tests. I've repeated the tests with an identical cable from the same kit, and have found the same results. I've also repeated the tests with the 'proper' cat 5 cables with 4 other cables.
I tested this by connecting two systems to the same switch, and swapping out the cable on one of them. I also used the free version of LAN Speed Test to do some 'quick' performance testing. I'm running the test from my laptop to a share on a 3tb 7200 rpm drive on my desktop. I'm testing the cables at this point, not overall bandwidth, under conditions reasonably similar to real-world situations for me.
I was thinking of doing a direct system to system speed test as well, without the bridge, but looking at my results, that would be a clear waste of time.
Let's start off with the most obvious things.
The 4 stranded cable isn't capable of gigabit ethernet (no surprise there). In fact, it can't even do fast ethernet.
The speed test took a while to complete... in fact, I had dinner in the time it was running and the total time was about 2 hours to write and about as long to read.
It's pretty close to plain vanilla 10baseTX speeds by the looks of things.
Less obviously? No IPV6. I have no idea what's with that. I've had enough oddness with legacy gear that I'm not even going to touch on this.
I actually tested 2 random 'to spec' cat5 cables from my spares bin. Both have UL marks, and had similar enough performance that I'm only going to post one set of results. These detect as 'proper' gig-e cables. Both were freebies from routers, so it's not like I'm comparing apples and oranges.
Gigabit Ethernet Sweetness!
And have performance that's pretty reasonable - taking into account various overheads like the test writing to a file share.
Yes, that's about 200 seconds total vs about 4 hours. And Ipv6 works perfectly.
Even with the devices it came with - which could easily reach up to 80-100Mbps, the cable might have fallen short. It's clearly not cat 5 e as labelled, and in my specific use, it's clearly unacceptably slow. If I wasn't planning on documenting this, I'd probably have stopped the test for the other cable sooner.
So long as you're using it with equipment that only uses 4 wires, it should be fine. – Daniel R Hicks – 2014-01-14T01:39:50.663
I've never actually seen a ethernet socket with just 4 contacts, so thats a tricky thing to work out. It hasn't flaked out on me yet, but its the strangest ethernet cable I've ever seen. – Journeyman Geek – 2014-01-14T06:05:38.243
3+1 nice question. GigE and beyond is common enough now that the fact only 2 pairs are required for Fast Ethernet is no longer "common" knowledge. – Phil – 2014-01-14T06:53:06.550
J - Well, devices that require more than the 4 wires are pretty rare. Only SOME of the high-speed 1000megabit stuff, and few folks have any need for that kind of speed. – Daniel R Hicks – 2014-01-14T11:52:28.190
1@DanielRHicks: Most modern equipment is 1000megabit, and nearly all the cables I've seen are 8 wire. I'm currently running some tests, and am seeing rather dramatically bad results with this specific cable. – Journeyman Geek – 2014-01-14T11:55:47.083
1Like I said, few folks have any need for that kind of speed. You're apparently one of the few. – Daniel R Hicks – 2014-01-14T12:06:35.783
1The cable seems to be running at 10 mbps from what I can tell. The speed test I used on the newer cables, and took minutes has been running for hours on this. – Journeyman Geek – 2014-01-14T12:43:00.387
1Cat5e cable must have 8 strands of copper. The person who terminated this cable was obviously on drugs. – pauska – 2014-01-14T14:05:49.207
1@pauska: the connector won't hold more than 4 strands of copper - the rest of it is filled in. Every stage of design and construction of this cable were obviously fuelled by copious amounts of illegal substances. – Journeyman Geek – 2014-01-15T01:49:07.557
Are you planning on marketing the Cat'o'nine tails? Just wondering... – Tog – 2014-01-23T15:19:22.580
Naw, was a random image I remember off the internet. Source here http://laughingsquid.com/cat-5-o-nine-tails-ethernet-cable-whip/
– Journeyman Geek – 2014-01-23T15:21:27.540