• I will make 1 "improvement" to Gail's recommendation on MAXDOP. Check your hardware, and if it is NUMA (almost all modern servers are) then set the SQL Server MAXDOP setting to lessthan or equal to the number of PHYSICAL cores in each NUMA node. This works to minimize cross-node memory access, which is a relatively slow operation.

    Best,
    Kevin G. Boles
    SQL Server Consultant
    SQL MVP 2007-2012
    TheSQLGuru on googles mail service