diff --git a/pkgs/development/interpreters/python/cpython/2.7/default.nix b/pkgs/development/interpreters/python/cpython/2.7/default.nix
index 77b37c5f5c39..0df49213f5a3 100644
--- a/pkgs/development/interpreters/python/cpython/2.7/default.nix
+++ b/pkgs/development/interpreters/python/cpython/2.7/default.nix
@@ -85,6 +85,9 @@ let
       # backported in debian since 2013.
       # https://bugs.python.org/issue13146
       ./atomic_pyc.patch
+
+      # Backport from CPython 3.8 of a good list of tests to run for PGO.
+      ./profile-task.patch
     ] ++ optionals (x11Support && stdenv.isDarwin) [
       ./use-correct-tcl-tk-on-darwin.patch
     ] ++ optionals stdenv.isLinux [
@@ -135,6 +138,7 @@ let
     '';
 
   configureFlags = [
+    "--enable-optimizations"
     "--enable-shared"
     "--with-threads"
     "--enable-unicode=ucs${toString ucsEncoding}"
diff --git a/pkgs/development/interpreters/python/cpython/2.7/profile-task.patch b/pkgs/development/interpreters/python/cpython/2.7/profile-task.patch
new file mode 100644
index 000000000000..9c085657ac9d
--- /dev/null
+++ b/pkgs/development/interpreters/python/cpython/2.7/profile-task.patch
@@ -0,0 +1,21 @@
+Backport from CPython 3.8 of a good list of tests to run for PGO.
+
+Upstream commit:
+  https://github.com/python/cpython/commit/4e16a4a31
+
+Upstream discussion:
+  https://bugs.python.org/issue36044
+
+diff --git a/Makefile.pre.in b/Makefile.pre.in
+index 00fdd21ce..713dc1e53 100644
+--- a/Makefile.pre.in
++++ b/Makefile.pre.in
+@@ -259,7 +259,7 @@ TCLTK_LIBS=
+ # The task to run while instrumented when building the profile-opt target.
+ # We exclude unittests with -x that take a rediculious amount of time to
+ # run in the instrumented training build or do not provide much value.
+-PROFILE_TASK=-m test.regrtest --pgo -x test_asyncore test_gdb test_multiprocessing test_subprocess
++PROFILE_TASK=-m test.regrtest --pgo test_array test_base64 test_binascii test_binop test_bisect test_bytes test_bz2 test_cmath test_codecs test_collections test_complex test_dataclasses test_datetime test_decimal test_difflib test_embed test_float test_fstring test_functools test_generators test_hashlib test_heapq test_int test_itertools test_json test_long test_lzma test_math test_memoryview test_operator test_ordered_dict test_pickle test_pprint test_re test_set test_sqlite test_statistics test_struct test_tabnanny test_time test_unicode test_xml_etree test_xml_etree_c
+ 
+ # report files for gcov / lcov coverage report
+ COVERAGE_INFO= $(abs_builddir)/coverage.info
diff --git a/pkgs/development/interpreters/python/cpython/3.5/profile-task.patch b/pkgs/development/interpreters/python/cpython/3.5/profile-task.patch
new file mode 100644
index 000000000000..39d5587379ca
--- /dev/null
+++ b/pkgs/development/interpreters/python/cpython/3.5/profile-task.patch
@@ -0,0 +1,21 @@
+Backport from CPython 3.8 of a good list of tests to run for PGO.
+
+Upstream commit:
+  https://github.com/python/cpython/commit/4e16a4a31
+
+Upstream discussion:
+  https://bugs.python.org/issue36044
+
+diff --git a/Makefile.pre.in b/Makefile.pre.in
+index 00fdd21ce..713dc1e53 100644
+--- a/Makefile.pre.in
++++ b/Makefile.pre.in
+@@ -259,7 +259,7 @@ TCLTK_LIBS=
+ # The task to run while instrumented when building the profile-opt target.
+ # We exclude unittests with -x that take a rediculious amount of time to
+ # run in the instrumented training build or do not provide much value.
+-PROFILE_TASK=-m test.regrtest --pgo -x test_asyncore test_gdb test_multiprocessing_fork test_multiprocessing_forkserver test_multiprocessing_main_handling test_multiprocessing_spawn test_subprocess
++PROFILE_TASK=-m test.regrtest --pgo test_array test_base64 test_binascii test_binop test_bisect test_bytes test_bz2 test_cmath test_codecs test_collections test_complex test_dataclasses test_datetime test_decimal test_difflib test_embed test_float test_fstring test_functools test_generators test_hashlib test_heapq test_int test_itertools test_json test_long test_lzma test_math test_memoryview test_operator test_ordered_dict test_pickle test_pprint test_re test_set test_sqlite test_statistics test_struct test_tabnanny test_time test_unicode test_xml_etree test_xml_etree_c
+ 
+ # report files for gcov / lcov coverage report
+ COVERAGE_INFO= $(abs_builddir)/coverage.info
diff --git a/pkgs/development/interpreters/python/cpython/3.6/profile-task.patch b/pkgs/development/interpreters/python/cpython/3.6/profile-task.patch
new file mode 100644
index 000000000000..df55da3a4132
--- /dev/null
+++ b/pkgs/development/interpreters/python/cpython/3.6/profile-task.patch
@@ -0,0 +1,21 @@
+Backport from CPython 3.8 of a good list of tests to run for PGO.
+
+Upstream commit:
+  https://github.com/python/cpython/commit/4e16a4a31
+
+Upstream discussion:
+  https://bugs.python.org/issue36044
+
+diff --git a/Makefile.pre.in b/Makefile.pre.in
+index 00fdd21ce..713dc1e53 100644
+--- a/Makefile.pre.in
++++ b/Makefile.pre.in
+@@ -259,7 +259,7 @@ TCLTK_LIBS=
+ # The task to run while instrumented when building the profile-opt target.
+ # We exclude unittests with -x that take a rediculious amount of time to
+ # run in the instrumented training build or do not provide much value.
+-PROFILE_TASK=-m test.regrtest --pgo
++PROFILE_TASK=-m test.regrtest --pgo test_array test_base64 test_binascii test_binop test_bisect test_bytes test_bz2 test_cmath test_codecs test_collections test_complex test_dataclasses test_datetime test_decimal test_difflib test_embed test_float test_fstring test_functools test_generators test_hashlib test_heapq test_int test_itertools test_json test_long test_lzma test_math test_memoryview test_operator test_ordered_dict test_pickle test_pprint test_re test_set test_sqlite test_statistics test_struct test_tabnanny test_time test_unicode test_xml_etree test_xml_etree_c
+ 
+ # report files for gcov / lcov coverage report
+ COVERAGE_INFO= $(abs_builddir)/coverage.info
diff --git a/pkgs/development/interpreters/python/cpython/default.nix b/pkgs/development/interpreters/python/cpython/default.nix
index 1df70fb99ccb..7dbe6216e728 100644
--- a/pkgs/development/interpreters/python/cpython/default.nix
+++ b/pkgs/development/interpreters/python/cpython/default.nix
@@ -104,6 +104,14 @@ in with passthru; stdenv.mkDerivation {
   ] ++ optionals (isPy37 || isPy38) [
     # Fix darwin build https://bugs.python.org/issue34027
     ./3.7/darwin-libutil.patch
+  ] ++ optionals (pythonOlder "3.8") [
+    # Backport from CPython 3.8 of a good list of tests to run for PGO.
+    (
+      if isPy36 || isPy37 then
+        ./3.6/profile-task.patch
+      else
+        ./3.5/profile-task.patch
+    )
   ] ++ optionals (isPy3k && hasDistutilsCxxPatch) [
     # Fix for http://bugs.python.org/issue1222585
     # Upstream distutils is calling C compiler to compile C++ code, which
@@ -135,6 +143,7 @@ in with passthru; stdenv.mkDerivation {
   PYTHONHASHSEED=0;
 
   configureFlags = [
+    "--enable-optimizations"
     "--enable-shared"
     "--without-ensurepip"
     "--with-system-expat"