I got rid of all my flat cables and went to thick rounded cables. I have never heard of the noise issue. I have found that playing on cable has done me wonders with downloading and playing online games, I also can't complain too much about 56k. I have NetZero for my ISP. I don't have the best computer out there but it is fast enough to have not too bad of lag. What make my pc run better I have found is to get a fast running hard drive, 9600 XT ATI or better, and eough memory (256 or better) at a high mhz.
All of this has helped my gaming experience and still enjoying.
One other thing is I found that if you run Win98SE it will help your pc run a bit better while gaming.