I have actually seen a few posts here and there of 'cargo check' being slow. I have also heard of complaints of rust-analyzer being slow, though rust-analyzer may be doing more than just 'cargo check'.
>Triage notes (AFAIUI): #132625 is merged, but the compile time is not fully clawed back as #132625 is a compromise between (full) soundness and performance in favor of a full revert (full revert would bring back more soundness problems AFAICT)
Update: They fixed it, but another issue surfaced, possibly related, as I read the comments.
https://www.reddit.com/r/rust/comments/1daip72/rust_checkrun...
May not be indicative, not sure what crate the author was using.