Ajax VS JQuery VS PHP on Pagination

[eluser][email protected][/eluser]
[quote author="Pert" date="1371289410"]If you don't want to reload the page then your only option is Ajax.

Loading in everything and then trying to split it with jQuery into pages might work in some cases if you only have couple of pages, but it will make first page load slow.[/quote]

Ok, so what if I am not splitting the page load of each page's data, and load everything and sorted then paginate with PHP and Ajax. I found a Ajax Paginate plugin by someone who edited the original PHP CI Pagination library, but I still see the page has been refreshed even when its using Ajax mix with PHP. Does it has to be pure Ajax to make it not reload the page?

Thanks