Can I dedicate the 5 GHz band to one specific devise?

Question

I've got the new Dual band n Airport Extreme (AE) that I would like to dedicate the 5GHz band to one specific devise and have all others use 2.4.  My goal is giving the most 'horsepower' to my work laptop upstairs, all others can use the 2.4.  Being on another floor, I need all the help I can get with strong connections and good performnace. 
Short and sweet bullets include:
Current Devices:
-Dell laptop for work. 5GHz band card will be installed shortly.
-iMac, Lion OS, 3 mos old.  Recently hard wired to the AE as perofrmance was spotty when connected wirelessly even though the AE is 20 ft away.
-iPhone 4s, iPhone 4, iPad (1st gen)
-HP printer wirelessly connected to the AE
-An old Droid I connect to the internet once in a blue moon
-A blue ray player (rarely use to stream Nexflix)
-HD TV with access to Netflix, etc (rarly use)
Smat folks will quickly notice only the laptop can access the 5GHz band given my iMac (only devise 5Ghz) is hardwired.  That will change....Apple TV will be purchased.  Also, 1 yr old son may say "hey this cord looks great, why I dont I pull it to see what falls first, the iMac or AE".  This question answers near-term questions as I expand devices and helps really prepair for my next 2-3 devices. 
I understand the process of setup a seprate name for the 5GHz band.  Guidance needed- How do you "point" the laptop to the 5GHz band.  I've looked fo the option on my iMac (previos to hardwiring it) wiht no luck.  My chaallenge is figuring out how have the laptop read adn connect to the 5GHz band automatically...I don't have the setup to automatically have devised choose which band whey would like to use.  i've looked numerous arcieles and I can find where people describe in sufficien detail  >>>>Please be as specific as possible on each step is required to get my laptop to recogize and connect with the 5GHz band. 
Some addtl questions
1- Can I tell which devise is connected with an n, g, b, whatever band?  I dont want anything degreading the bandwitch of the 2.4 GH2 band. 
Can you tell which devises are using those bands (n,g, ?) bands.  As i understand, in this specific case, if I have 20 different devisce all using the 4Ghz band,  I want to make sure my laptop gets the best performance. 
Thanks!

Answer 1

You already have assigned a separate name to the 5 GHz band on the router, so to have a Mac connect to that band, you would do the following:
Open System Preferences (gear icon) on the dock
Open Network
Click on AirPort or Wi-Fi
Click Advanced at the lower right
Make sure that the name of the 5 GHz network is first in line at the top of the connection order list. Drag it to the top if it's not already there.
Delete any other networks that you no longer need by clicking on them to highlight them, and then clicking the - (minus) button at the bottom of the list.
Make sure that there is a check mark next to "Remember networks this computer has joined"
No other boxes should be checked
Then open Macintosh HD > Applications > Utilities > KeyChain Access, locate the listing for the networks that you no longer needed, and delete the entry for each of them.
I would like to see how (b/g or n) my other devises are connecting to the Airport Extreme.
Open AirPort Utillty 5.x, select the AirPort Extreme, and click Manual Setup
Click on Wireless Clients about 2/3 of the way down the page
The window will display the MAC address of each wireless device along with info about the connection. You will need to do a bit of investigative work to figure out which MAC address matches up with each wireless device.
My understanding is that a router will use the lowest of the connections (if one devise is connecting via b, all other devises will connect b).
No, that is a common tale that we hear, but it is not correct. Each wireless device will connect to either 2.4 GHz or 5 Ghz based on its capabilities. It will do the same as far as whether it connects at "n", "g", or "b" speeds. For example, my laptop connects at "n" speeds while my old iPhone connects at "g" speed.  The slower iPhone connection has virtually no impact on the "n" connection with the laptop.
I used a wi-fi analyzer to determine the best channel, and it indicated chanel 14 was the best.
If you are in the U.S. or Canada, then you can only use channels 1-11 on the 2.4 GHz band. The U.K. uses channels 1-13.