MU-MIMO. Do devices need to be compatible?

[Jonathanese]

I have an Arris SBG6580 Modem/Router combo that I got recently and may return in exchange for a separate router and modem. (Recommendations?)

One reason is I want a high-bandwidth, dual band network for streaming games from my PC to an Nvidia Shield box, which would act as my primary TV box.

So anyway, I rather quickly stumbled upon MU-MIMO, which sounds like the perfect technology for such an application. But I have a a few questions about it:

- I read something about "if a device does not support MU-MIMO, the whole network is restricted to SU-MIMO" which sounds, well, pointless. I wasn't sure if they were talking about routers and boosters, or the actual client devices themselves.

- Do client devices need to be compatible with MU-MIMO to take advantage of it?

- Is this feature worth it? I have a 100Mb internet connection which would probably go mostly to HBO and Nexflix, and most of my intranet bandwidth would be used for SHield. Does this make much of a difference, or is it overkill?

 

[Kurz]

http://www.howtogeek.com/242793/what-is-mu-mimo-and-do-i-need-it-on-my-router/

I hope this answers your questions.

 

[bill001g]

The linked article above is very good and fair....so many fan boys have to have the biggest "number" at least this article took a neutral approach.

You can run a mix of devices the ones that run su-mimo will share 1 group of the 4 mu-mimo. The mu-mimo devices will get one of the other groups.

Read the article and see if you will benefit, it does not really help just a single feed it is really meant if you have many large users.

 

[Jonathanese]

Wow, very helpful. Thanks!

Looks like I won't be making my decsions based on this feature.