Just faster in all scenarios eh? Sounds like magic! I wish SQL Server was Oracle...:laugh:

Yes, partitioning performance is much improved in 2008 in many circumstances. To be fair, the 2005 partitioning design was *all* about making maintenance easier - not performance.

One document that explains the improvements well can be found on TechNet:

http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/magazine/2008.04.dwperformance.aspx

The whole document is good, but the Partitioned Table Parallelism section is most relevant to your question.

Paul