We bumped down the memory to 128 Gb on the SQL2, and we see the same plan as SQL1. Kind of throws all logic out of the window. But Paul...

Here is the million dollar question!

Does the query optimizer consider the load on the server when it compiles an execution plan?

Why does SQLServerCentral.com publish the same articles just written by different authors over and over again.

Just a mindless rehash of kiddie concepts, copied from elsewhere and changed here and there.

You need to pick up a book on SQL server performance tuning.

Also there are several articles here on sql server central, also check out blogs etc.

Books online is a great...