Looking for high speed benchmark test for the Stratix IV FPGA Dev Kit

I see that the Stratix IV GX development kit with EP4SGX230KF40C2N FPGA is compliant to PCI Express 2.0 x8 (eight lane). Given that each PCIe 2.0 lane can transfer 500 MB/s, eight lanes in aggregate should be able to transfer 4 GB/s (yes, Giga Bytes per second). Therefore, I'm assuming that this means that the development board/FPGA can receive data at this rate (4 GB/s).

Questions:

1. Is the above a correct assumption?

2. Are there any benchmark studies (white papers, etc.) illustrating actual

high-speed data transfer rates (please send a link)?

3. Is there a PCIe "core license" I need to purchase?

4. Is there a particular Quartus license I need to purchase (and what's the

cost)?

I need feedback before I make a purchase for my group.

Thanks,

Eric J. Harris

Electronics Engineer

NASA GSFC

301-286-3439

[email protected]