diff --git a/pkgs/build-support/cc-wrapper/default.nix b/pkgs/build-support/cc-wrapper/default.nix
index 7f24c1153d2d..4758411773b4 100644
--- a/pkgs/build-support/cc-wrapper/default.nix
+++ b/pkgs/build-support/cc-wrapper/default.nix
@@ -801,8 +801,15 @@ stdenvNoCC.mkDerivation {
       export hardening_unsupported_flags="${concatStringsSep " " ccHardeningUnsupportedFlags}"
     ''
 
+    # Do not prevent omission of framepointers on x86 32bit due to the small
+    # number of general purpose registers. Keeping EBP available provides
+    # non-trivial performance benefits.
+    + optionalString (!targetPlatform.isx86_32) ''
+      echo " -fno-omit-frame-pointer -mno-omit-leaf-frame-pointer " >> $out/nix-support/cc-cflags-before
+    ''
+
     # For clang, this is handled in add-clang-cc-cflags-before.sh
-    + lib.optionalString (!isClang && machineFlags != [ ]) ''
+    + optionalString (!isClang && machineFlags != [ ]) ''
       printf "%s\n" ${lib.escapeShellArgs machineFlags} >> $out/nix-support/cc-cflags-before
     ''