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Nighthawk R7800 vs R8500
I originally had a R7000. I loved it, but wanted a little more firepower. I had some BestBuy giftcards laying around, enough for the R8500 which I purchased. But, I have the option to exchange the ...
In my option the R8500 is just a slightly beefed up R8000 and not worth the price difference. If you are mostly concerned with “futureproofing” yourself, the Qualcomm-based R7800 is your best bet. Why do I say that?
When looking at MU-MIMO, Broadcom (hardware in R8500) is playing catchup big time. Qualcomm Networking (R7800 hardware) put in 7 years of research with their MU-MIMO product portfolio, plus 4 years of that 7 was hardware prototype development and testing before any of their MU-MIMO products got to market.
There is beta firmware for the R8500 going around. I have not tested it myself with MU-MIMO devices, but I have heard from those that have it and it far from fully baked, but barely “half baked” when it comes to MU-MIMO.
For now, it you have 4 or more non-MU-MIMO (SU-MIMO) devices connecting to the 5GHz radio at once, the R8500 (or R8000) make more sense with the two 5GH radios to balance the traffic.
Another factor you might want to consider is power usage. The Broadcom platform routers use much more power than the Qualcomm alternatives/equivalents. Qualcomm just has better power management.
In my option the R8500 is just a slightly beefed up R8000 and not worth the price difference. If you are mostly concerned with “futureproofing” yourself, the Qualcomm-based R7800 is your best bet. Why do I say that?
When looking at MU-MIMO, Broadcom (hardware in R8500) is playing catchup big time. Qualcomm Networking (R7800 hardware) put in 7 years of research with their MU-MIMO product portfolio, plus 4 years of that 7 was hardware prototype development and testing before any of their MU-MIMO products got to market.
There is beta firmware for the R8500 going around. I have not tested it myself with MU-MIMO devices, but I have heard from those that have it and it far from fully baked, but barely “half baked” when it comes to MU-MIMO.
For now, it you have 4 or more non-MU-MIMO (SU-MIMO) devices connecting to the 5GHz radio at once, the R8500 (or R8000) make more sense with the two 5GH radios to balance the traffic.
Another factor you might want to consider is power usage. The Broadcom platform routers use much more power than the Qualcomm alternatives/equivalents. Qualcomm just has better power management.