Hi,

to 64 Bit:
This only matters for PROGRAMS that run on a processor inside the FPGA - 
like Cortex-A9 Cores (32 Bit) in Zynq.


In the FPGA fabric for actual data processing, you can use ANY 
resolution you want. Also 62 bits, or e.g. 144 bits if you need it. Just 
a question of # of ressources you want to throw at the problem.


> What is the difference between an fpga development board
> and just an fpga board?

Development is - obviously - for development purposes.
Other Boards might be intended to go into customer products or be used 
directly in a productive environment (such as a PCIe accelerator Card).

James Yunker wrote:
> Also, since most of my code that I want to speed up has been ported to
> 64 bits years ago what is there if any difference between 32 bit abd 64
> bit linux aspertains to an fpga?

FPGAs are completely different to microprocessors, so speeding up an 
algorithm by simply bringing the code to FPGA will not work.
A FPGA can implement a microprocessor which can than run Linux, but this 
processor and Linux wll be much slower than a high end microprocessor,

An FPGA brings you only an advantage if implement part of the algorithm 
in hardware.
An example would be a cryptographic operation:
Instead of having a sequence of xor and shift operations executed by the 
processor you have a hardware unit, which is loaded with 1024 bit and 
all the shifting, xor-ing is done in a few clock cylces by hardware.
But even in that case you have to ponder the overhead time needed to 
laod the hardware unit.