diff --git a/nix.spec.in b/nix.spec.in
index 2447f13a8..0c9b9ab20 100644
--- a/nix.spec.in
+++ b/nix.spec.in
@@ -107,7 +107,7 @@ extraFlags=
 %configure --localstatedir=/nix/var \
            --docdir=%{_defaultdocdir}/%{name}-doc-%{version} \
            $extraFlags
-make %{?_smp_flags}
+make -j$NIX_BUILD_CORES -l$NIX_BUILD_CORES
 %{_emacs_bytecompile} misc/emacs/nix-mode.el
 
 
diff --git a/release.nix b/release.nix
index 8d71cc841..0b5b5579b 100644
--- a/release.nix
+++ b/release.nix
@@ -284,9 +284,10 @@ let
         { extraPackages =
             [ "perl-DBD-SQLite" "perl-devel" "sqlite" "sqlite-devel" "bzip2-devel" "emacs" "libcurl-devel" "openssl-devel" "xz-devel" ]
             ++ extraPackages; };
-      memSize = 1024;
+      memSize = 8192;
       meta.schedulingPriority = 50;
       postRPMInstall = "cd /tmp/rpmout/BUILD/nix-* && make installcheck";
+      enableParallelBuilding = true;
     };