[dumael]

Linking several hundred objects in a dozen or so libaries out of 2.5kish objects together is going to get hairily expensive memory wise no matter what way you do it.

Compiling with debug information embedded raises that to around 12GB to do it in a practical timeframe, though it may have dropped recently with some tweaks that have been published on llvmdev. Unless you've willing to wait a few hours.

GCC is no slouch in that area either but its usage spikes feel lower.

(Source: compiler dev)