Received my xCORE-200 eXplorerKIT today. At some point in the near future I'll probably need it to for more RAM space, if nothing else. Compared to the XS-1 StartKit:

• 256k RAM per tile, 512k total, vs. 64k available on the StartKit
• 2 available tiles with 5 fully-clocked cores each, compared to 1 tile with 4 fully-clocked cores on the StartKit
• 16 total logical cores vs 8 total logical cores on the StartKit
• Dual-issue pipeline should almost double MIPS per core
• Additional 64-bit and DSP-oriented instructions

So all in all, I should be looking at a 5x performance speedup, anyway. The extra RAM will definitely be useful. Also there's GbE on board, for networking options, and USB. Maybe I'll code support for USB keyboard and mouse. I'm hoping I can attach a hub, since there's only one USB link (the other USB port is for power only).

A number of I/O pins are taken up by GbE and the on-board xSYS header. Hopefully I can figure out a way to get 24 parallel bits out to the video DAC.