Can USB replace PCI and work reliably ?

[nulik]

Hi,
in my search for parallel computing I discovered that FPGAs are more efficient than GPUs, so I found a good SoC board with 85k logic cells which is more than enough for what I need per device (http://www.myirtech.com/list.asp?id=502) and I could connect many of such devices to the CPU.
The problem is this board does not have PCI slot to communicate with the CPU. The ethernet port will be used by my app, so the only choice left is : USB.
And my question is, what problems can I run if I use the USB port for communication between CPU and the SoC board? I am aware that USB 2.0 only can transfer up to 60 MBytes/sec, but this is not a big problem since I can use PCI extension cards with USB ports. But I have this perception that USB is not very reliable , and not suitable for long term data transfer like 24/7, is this true ? Would I be forced to implement my own protocol on top of USB to handle corrupt packets or something like that?

TIA
Nulik

[Nable]

I discovered that FPGAs are more efficient than GPUs

What do you mean by "efficient"? FPGA are very power-hungry and inefficient in terms of operations/Watt. But they are flexible and able to work with little latency (in real time signal processing), is this what you mean?

About USB: there may be errors at physical layer but from the application point of view bulk transfers are reliable by definition (nobody loses data due to USB when they read/write external hard drive).

[nulik]

FPGA are very power-hungry and inefficient in terms of operations/Watt. But they are flexible and able to work with little latency (in real time signal processing), is this what you mean?

this is not what I have so far researched. It is exactly the opposite. The FPGAs have very low power consumption and the GPUs are just like electric heaters.
you can check more details here:
http://www.gazettabyte.com/home/2014/12 ... -role.html

About USB: there may be errors at physical layer but from the application point of view bulk transfers are reliable by definition (nobody loses data due to USB when they read/write external hard drive).

Thanks! Then , I am going to order my first FPGA enabled SoC, it is probably going to be Parallella from Amazon since in China it is New Year and all the stores are closed.