Nighthawk Routers (x2) into access point

[tisbury]

Hello all, hopefully a quick question.
I have two Nighthawk routers, an R7000 and an R8000. The R7000 was great, and I loved the Disney Circle functionality for my kids. We recently moved into a new, much larger home and the R7000 wasn't cutting it so I snagged the R8000 tri-band that seems to be much better in every way.
The basement of the house is unfinished so I'm planning on running Cat5e through the entire main level and was thinking about using the R8000 in the master bedroom with my xbox and TV, and the R7000 as an access point about 50 feet away on the other side of the house. I've never set up an access point before, but it seems simple enough.
I'm wondering if the R8000 would be a better access point... I'm not entirely sure what to do here. The second 5g band gets me 250mbps over wifi and I'm stuck trying to figure out the best way to do this.
Also, if I set up one of the routers as an AP, does that allow multiple devices to use the ports on the back of the AP like a switch? Should I install the AP close to the TV so I can hard wire it?

 

[Solandri]

Read the sticky on converting a wireless router into a wireless access point. Yes you will be able to use the extra LAN ports on the back like a switch. Hard-wiring is always preferable to wireless if the cable is not intrusive.

http://www.tomshardware.com/forum/36406-43-convert-wireless-router-wireless-access-point

As for R8000 vs R7000, the vast majority of 802.11ac devices out there are 2x2 MIMO, so can only use 2 of the 3 antennas on the R7000. The R7000 is 3x3 MIMO, so can hit its highest speeds (1300 Mbps link speed, about 700-800 Mbps maximum throughput) if your device supports 3x3 (has 3 antennas). Most 2x2 devices (866 Mbps link speed, about 450-500 Mbps maximum throughput) end up around 250-400 Mbps in real-world use.

The R8000 is basically two R7000s for 802.11ac. It can simultaneously communicate with two ac devices, meaning their signals won't interfere with each other (they won't split the router's wireless bandwidth). But the R8000 does not inherently support higher speeds than the R7000 with a single device.

The R7000 is 600 Mbps @ 2.4 GHz + 1300 Mbps @ 5 GHz = 1900 Mbps total = AC1900
The R8000 is 600 Mbps @ 2.4 GHz + 1300 Mbps @ 5 GHz radio 1 + 1300 Mbps @ 5 GHz radio 2 = 3200 Mbps total = AC3200

There's no way for a single device to take advantage of the extra radio on the R8000. Its only benefit over the R7000 (aside from antenna and processor differences) is that it can talk to two 802.11ac devices simultaneously. So the R8000 should go where more 802.11ac devices will connect and generate the most WiFi traffic.

Be aware that the beam pattern of those little antennas is a torus - a donut shape. Imagine dropping a donut on the antenna. The lobes of the donut are where the signal strength (both transmit and receive) is strongest. So if the antennas are pointed up, there will be very little signal strength above and below the router. This can be important if you live in a multi-story house and plan to put the router in the bottom or top floor. Try for the middle floor, or rotate some of the antennas so their donuts intersect the high-traffic areas of your house on other floors. (Antennas on your devices should be oriented to be parallel to the router's antennas if possible.)

http://mpantenna.wpengine.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/02/FIGURE-1.png

 

[tisbury]

That was probably the most amazing answer I could have ever expected. Thank you Solandri.