Is there a big gain replacing DISTINCT with GROUP BY

Question

Without any definite proof I've been preferring to use the following to get a distinct list of x:

SELECT  x
FROM    tb_containRepeatedX
GROUP BY x

As opposed to

SELECT  DISTINCT x
FROM    tb_containRepeatedX

Is this the correct strategy?

Check the executions plan. They are probably identical. – cadrell0 Mar 26 '13 at 14:46 — cadrell0, Mar 26 '13 at 14:46

score 1 · Accepted Answer · answered Mar 26 '13 at 14:47

1

According to the execution plan. It's the same,

With GROUP:

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With DISTINCT:

enter image description here

answered Mar 26 '13 at 14:47

John Woo

1 Answers1