A Xilinx Kintex 7 board on AliExpress?

[hamster_nz]

Not often you see a Kintex 7 XC7K420T dev board for under US$170

https://www.aliexpress.com/item/32907109444.html

These really must have "fallen off a truck", or somebody got dumped a lot of old parts 

(Yes, I do have the required license for Vivado that is needed to use this, no I am not buying one)

[SiliconWizard]

Uh. Sounds... incredible...

You know how much a XC7K420T itself costs I suppose...
https://www.digikey.com/product-detail/en/xilinx-inc/XC7K420T-1FFG901C/122-1839-ND/3911025

So yeah maybe those are fake boards, or stolen, or just some stock gotten from a company that has gone bankrupt...

[Mr. Scram]

I've bought FPGA boards from Aliexpress and possibly even this seller. They seemed to roll their own boards.

[hamster_nz]

So yeah maybe those are fake boards, or stolen, or just some stock gotten from a company that has gone bankrupt...

But those slots for SFP optics are calling me... must resist.

[SiliconWizard]

Well if the boards are in working order and the FPGA is genuine, that would be hard to resist indeed...

[Mr. Scram]

Note that the boards I bought came with more mundane FPGAs. I'm trying to find out whether that was this seller.

[KE5FX]

Well if the boards are in working order and the FPGA is genuine, that would be hard to resist indeed...

If they're cloning midrange FPGAs these days, I'm impressed.  Even a ghost-shift production run wouldn't be trivial to pull off under Xilinx's nose.

But how does the Vivado license work?    XC7325T isn't supported under Webpack, much less XC7420T.  Those are kilobuck+ parts.

[AndreZheng]

This kind of high end FPGAs are teared off parts from boards like: communication board, bitcoin miner machine etc. And the BGA balls are re-soldered. The price for XC7K325T-1FGG676C chip near 100$. And after adding those SFP interfaces, how could this board be only taking 170$?! Incredible!

[NivagSwerdna]

I quite like the look of this... what would I need to adapt the SPF+ to wired ethernet?

[Mr. Scram]

I quite like the look of this... what would I need to adapt the SPF+ to wired ethernet?

A switch with SPF would probably work.

[ali_asadzadeh]

These Prices for FPGA is somehow normal in china! do not worry that much

[Scrts]

I guess there's no RAM? Extremely limited board IMHO... You can only rely on internal BRAM for memory and that's it.

[oPossum]

This version has 2 DRAM SODIMMs

https://www.aliexpress.com/item/32956526454.html?spm=a2g1y.12024536.productList_35413432.pic_2

[Scrts]

That's better. And the expansion port seems to be better as well

[asmi]

But how does the Vivado license work?    XC7325T isn't supported under Webpack, much less XC7420T.  Those are kilobuck+ parts.

If you buy a K7 devboard from Xilinx or Digilent, they will give you a voucher for Vivado, which is device-limited to whatever device that is on a board (and includes a year of free updates). This might be a cheaper option if you want to work with such a device. I'm considering buying a Genesys 2 board just for that purpose as it's the cheapest way to obtain this license for K325T device as shelling out 3k$ for a full Vivado license is way beyond my hobby's budget.

[asmi]

A switch with SPF would probably work.

SFP only supports speeds up to 2.5G, if you want 10G - you will need SFP+. 10G switches are much more expensive, and 1G via fiber optic doesn't make much sense as you can get the same speed with any Gigabit Ethernet PHY and CAT5 cable. Though fiber does have range advantage if that's something you need.

[SiliconWizard]

These Prices for FPGA is somehow normal in china! do not worry that much

Uh huh. I'm sure China has nice deals for Xilinx parts, but we're talking about a part that is sold at ~2500USD per 1 in western countries. Is Xilinx this generous with China?

[SiliconWizard]

If you buy a K7 devboard from Xilinx or Digilent, they will give you a voucher for Vivado, which is device-limited to whatever device that is on a board (and includes a year of free updates). This might be a cheaper option if you want to work with such a device. I'm considering buying a Genesys 2 board just for that purpose as it's the cheapest way to obtain this license for K325T device as shelling out 3k$ for a full Vivado license is way beyond my hobby's budget.

Yes, the board is still $999...

And doesn't the Aliexpress board you mentioned have a XC7K420T and not a K325T?

[Mr. Scram]

"Don't worry, I wrote 12,9USD on the packing box." 

[asmi]

Yes, the board is still $999...

Yes, but it's still cheaper than 3k$ just for a license...

And doesn't the Aliexpress board you mentioned have a XC7K420T and not a K325T?

I didn't mention it. I would love to try that one out, but it's way beyond what I can afford to spend on a hobby. It's very expensive as it is.

[SiliconWizard]

Yes, the board is still $999...

Yes, but it's still cheaper than 3k$ just for a license...

That's for sure...

And doesn't the Aliexpress board you mentioned have a XC7K420T and not a K325T?

I didn't mention it. I would love to try that one out, but it's way beyond what I can afford to spend on a hobby. It's very expensive as it is.

OK. Think I got confused at some point in the thread because it went a bit off-topic.
Thought you were mentioning buying the Digilent board as an option to get a cheaper license to be able to use the Aliexpress board...

[asmi]

I only recently realized just how much faster Kintex fabric is compared to Artix. HDL that closes timing at only 185 MHz on Artix, is closing at 280 MHz on Kintex (both are -2 speed grade)!

[colorado.rob]

I'm seriously considering giving the $350 board a go.  You can get 10GBasetT Ethernet SFP+ Transceiver modules for $50.  And 1GBaseT SFP goes for under $20.

But having to shell out $3k for a Vivado license is going to be a deal breaker for me.

[Jope]

But having to shell out $3k for a Vivado license is going to be a deal breaker for me.

Scroll down on the Aliexpress website and look at the list of supplied files...

[asmi]

I'm seriously considering giving the $350 board a go.  You can get 10GBasetT Ethernet SFP+ Transceiver modules for $50.  And 1GBaseT SFP goes for under $20.

Unless you already have an SFP+-capable switch, you will need to buy something to connect the fiber to. And the cheapest option will probably be to buy a second board