SQRL Acorn as Artix-7 dev board?

Question

I keep seeing SQRL Acorn CLE-215 boards appearing on eBay. From what I can tell they were intended for crypto mining, but didn't go down well due to the necessary software not appearing. Cue a lot of angry people and boards being sold on eBay.

Considering it's an Artix-7 and it has a M.2 interface plus a JTAG header, I was wondering if this would make an interesting board to play around with. My gut feel is that any PCIe work is probably advanced stuff and that it would end up gathering dust. Just thought I'd ask and maybe put others onto a good deal - at eBay prices that is, not the original selling price.

Link to manufacturer: Acorn CLE-215 | SQRL

Anyone have an opinion?

Fred27 · Accepted Answer

I got a little more opinion asking the same question on EEVBlog. Consensus seems to be that getting PCIe communication working would require quite some effort - despite the existence of Xilinx IP for PCIe. I suspect the dream of being able to accelerate workloads on a PC with this would end up gathering dust. I'll stick to simpler stuff for now.

As you might expect, contacting the manufacturer for a schematic has gone unanswered.