Got it right, but I think the answer should be "it depends". On what? The selectivity of the data in Col. You get a seek if you populate your table thus:

INSERT INTO TestTable (id, col)

SELECT TOP 1000000 ROW_NUMBER() OVER (ORDER BY a.name),

'name' + CAST(ROW_NUMBER() OVER (ORDER BY a.name) AS varchar(7))

FROM master.sys.columns a

CROSS JOIN master.sys.columns b

CROSS JOIN master.sys.columns c

... but a scan if you have the following data in the table:

INSERT INTO TestTable (id, col)

SELECT TOP 1000000 ROW_NUMBER() OVER (ORDER BY a.name),

'name' + CAST((ROW_NUMBER() OVER (ORDER BY a.name))/500000 AS char(5))

FROM master.sys.columns a

CROSS JOIN master.sys.columns b

CROSS JOIN master.sys.columns c

Therefore, in the second case, there'd be no way of optimising the stored procedure.

John