diff --git a/reactos/cmake/gcc.cmake b/reactos/cmake/gcc.cmake
index 4bd655981ec..896752bcb91 100644
--- a/reactos/cmake/gcc.cmake
+++ b/reactos/cmake/gcc.cmake
@@ -131,7 +131,7 @@ endif()
 # Optimizations
 # FIXME: Revisit this to see if we even need these levels
 if(CMAKE_BUILD_TYPE STREQUAL "Release")
-    add_compile_flags("-O3")
+    add_compile_flags("-O2 -DNDEBUG")
 else()
     if(OPTIMIZE STREQUAL "1")
         add_compile_flags("-Os -ftracer")