I mean, Algo traders I know are working on teams of 10-20 people with deep knowledge of $5k boards over a half-decade, so I think for "getting started" those might be pretty good.
If you have the v2 board you can use the PLL to change that 12MHz up to a high frequency (150 Mhz maybe?). You have to use a block and the icepll tool will generate the code for the frequency you want.
[0]: http://www.gnarlygrey.com
[1]: http://www.clifford.at/icestorm/