diff --git a/pkgs/development/libraries/boost/default.nix b/pkgs/development/libraries/boost/default.nix
index a549b5181ae7..fdccb83dd97d 100644
--- a/pkgs/development/libraries/boost/default.nix
+++ b/pkgs/development/libraries/boost/default.nix
@@ -33,7 +33,7 @@ let
 in
 
 stdenv.mkDerivation {
-  name = "boost-1.43.0";
+  name = "boost-1.44.0";
 
   meta = {
     homepage = "http://boost.org/";
@@ -44,8 +44,8 @@ stdenv.mkDerivation {
   };
 
   src = fetchurl {
-    url = "mirror://sourceforge/boost/boost_1_43_0.tar.bz2";
-    sha256 = "0831h19ph65r2rai6ipk5c2bx04af8q423mzr89fh454385i0krl";
+    url = "mirror://sourceforge/boost/boost_1_44_0.tar.bz2";
+    sha256 = "1nvq36mvzr1fr85q0jh86rk3bk65s1y55jgqgzfg3lcpkl12ihs5";
   };
 
   buildInputs = [icu expat zlib bzip2 python];
@@ -53,7 +53,7 @@ stdenv.mkDerivation {
   configureScript = "./bootstrap.sh";
   configureFlags = "--with-icu=${icu} --with-python=${python}/bin/python";
 
-  buildPhase = "./bjam -sEXPAT_INCLUDE=${expat}/include -sEXPAT_LIBPATH=${expat}/lib --layout=${finalLayout} variant=${variant} threading=${threading} link=${link} ${cflags} install";
+  buildPhase = "./bjam -j$NIX_BUILD_CORES -sEXPAT_INCLUDE=${expat}/include -sEXPAT_LIBPATH=${expat}/lib --layout=${finalLayout} variant=${variant} threading=${threading} link=${link} ${cflags} install";
 
   installPhase = ":";
 }