Cisco – Is it ok to use cat5e patches/jacks on cat6a cable for 10Gb

The answer to your question is probably lying in the manufacturer's data sheets: Short answer is that if the gear meets the Cat6 spec's requirements it's a "Cat6 panel" - One manufacturer may just barely meet those requirements, another may meet them with a bit of a margin, and a third may have a wide margin of performance above the requirements of the Cat6 specification.

If you're curious/interested look at the data sheets for the product & compare them to the Cat6 spec - I won't say there's no difference, but in practice I think panels from any reputable manufacturer will be electrically similar enough that you don't need to worry about it & can look at price.

Personally in practice I look at other factors (cable management & panel-to-panel connection style are biggies -- How much work will it be to cable the panels up, and if I have to move them in a year or two will I wind up having to replace all my panel-to-panel trunks or can I reuse them?). Spending less time with punchdowns & crawling under floors is always worth a little price premium in my mind :-)

It isn't the cable that's the problem. That's just a matter of insulation and manufacturing tolerances, the actual cable pairs are the same with either cable. The important bit is what protocol you're going to running over the wires. Some protocols only use two pairs, others use all four, and obviously you'll only be able to use a splitter if you're running a protocol that only requires two pairs. Also, not all the pairs are created equal (from a twists-per-metre perspective), and so again, depending on protocol and NIC, you may or may not have problems with cross-talk.