Workstation upgrades, need some insight...

[jsteinberg]

I am considering upgrades for my workstation (currently running Ubuntu Gnome 14.04) which is primarily used for development in Java, PHP, Ruby, Python and graphic editing (Photoshop/Illustrator/etc. in a Windows 7 VM via VirtualBox). At any given time I generally have something like the following running...

• 
  ■ Firefox: 4-7 windows with 5-15 tabs each.
  ■ Chromium: 1-4 windows with 4-10 tabs each.
  ■ Opera: 1-3 windows with 2-3 tabs each.
  ■ IntelliJ IDEA 14: with many tabs open
  ■ Eclipse (Mars): with many tabs open
  ■ SublimeText: with many tabs open
  ■ VirtualBox: Running a Windows 7 VM which itself needs to have enough resources to run Photoshop CS6 and Illustrator CS6 smoothly - ideally I would like to be able to run VirtualBox "seamless" mode - but that causes issues for me when I try it now.
  ■ LibreOffice - couple of spreadsheets and a few Word docs open at any given time.
  ■ Nautilus - several windows/tabs open
  ■ Background processes - Apache, mysql, postgresql, tomcat, etc.
  ■ Various utilities: Skype, Thunderbird, terminal windows, etc.

... so the goal is that the new build will support roughly this amount of programs/etc. being open basically all the time (and more at times) smoothly. I also have a three-monitor setup, so need a video card which supports that (already have one) - gaming is of no concern to me. I'd like to keep the budget <= $1000, but a bit more is not out of the question.

Here is the current build I have:

• 
  ■ ASRock x58 EXTREME6
  ■ Intel Core i7 950 Bloomfield
  ■ Patriot Viper II Sector 7 Edition 12GB (3x4) DDR3 1600
  ■ EVGA GeForce GTX 750 Ti
  ■ Samsung 830 128GB
  ■ Thermaltake 1000W Supply

I was thinking of upgrading the core (processor/mb/memory), but would this have any practical impact for my kind of workload? Would there be an alternative upgrade which would benefit my situation more?

I was thinking of something like an i7 6700k with 32GB of DDR4 2400 - would this make an impact?

Thanks in advance

 

[kanewolf]

A cheap (relatively) upgrade would be doubling the RAM you have. Triple channel matched kits are getting hard to find. A 1TB SSD would probably be beneficial also.

 

[jsteinberg]

A cheap (relatively) upgrade would be doubling the RAM you have. Triple channel matched kits are getting hard to find. A 1TB SSD would probably be beneficial also.

Interesting, didn't think about a larger SSD. Is there some reason why the capacity of the SSD would affect performance? I have a 4TB NAS which is where most long-term storage goes, so the workstation only contains projects I am working on and programs/OS.

Also, along the same line, if I were to buy another SSD, would there be any benefit to say, using my current one exclusively for the VM harddrive, and using the new one for everything else?

Finally, is there any practical benefit to be gained in my situation in a Motherboard/CPU upgrade to something like the 6700k I mentioned before?

I could get something like the 6700k + nice MB + 32 GB DDR4 + large SSD for within my budget, so is it worth doing all of it - or is some of it just a complete waste?

Thanks for your response!