I don't have an answer to your question, but please let me point out another issue.

You're getting ready to hop the 2014 Cardinality Estimation Engine upgrade gap. The new CE...

YAY!!!

Do you have a limit on the number of processors in use on the server? You really should, but if it's set to 0, then SQL Server is making the...

I think there's a Stairway series on them here on SSC.

Fill factor determines the amount of free space in a page. Generally, this alone, isn't determining query performance. You may be seeing additional I/O because you have a very low...

Replication is a viable for this situation. However, I shy away from replication very hard because it has received zero love from Microsoft for well over a decade. It's just...

Determining the cost threshold can be hard. However, I have a blog post that uses your own queries as a mechanism for making that choice. Suffice to say, the...

Grant: "The other is the need to filter after the XML is put together."

Do you mean that it materializes the ENTIRE resultset into one giant XML construct, and then...

Fingers crossed, this adds a little light and no more heat...

From a strictly performance oriented approach, I'm 100% with Gail. Integers are better. Period. Therefore, when performance really counts, I...

Not sure, but if I get the time to try this out, it will...

Because the filter has to be applied to the XML itself. The way the query is written, you're filtering on the aggregation and aggregation occurs within the XML. So you...

Yeah, first time I've seen this kind of filtering done against an XML result set. It actually worked WAY better than I would have imagined.

I think you're giving me WAY too much credit on this one Jeff. Let me look the plans over...

I'm not sure.

I assume that the EXISTS operator must be pushing down...

If you can post the plans, do that (SentryOne Plan Explorer can make them anonymous).

It's likely that Jeff has nailed it (Jeff is right a lot). Most of the time,...

The ping command is your buddy.