Something I’m not seeing here is many people in the cyber and info security spaces will have a homelab capable of complex configurations in order to mimic enterprise environments for their research.

This could be as simple as a single VM or as complex as multiple segregated networks to try to traverse.

I’ve never heard of any of the brands that come up so I can’t recommend any of them. I just searched for “RJ45 90 degree adapter” and found a number of options.

No experience with them, myself. Just a quick look and I found CAT-6 cables with a 90 degree connector, a 90 degree male to female adapter, and a 90 degree adapter that has a short cable to move the female connection so that is easier to reach.

I’d get all 3 styles and try them out separately to see if there is any performance impact. I can’t imagine any significant impact on performance occurring but it’s worth double checking. The biggest issue I can see is just build quality of the part.