Bad performance of SQL query due to ORDER BY clause

Question

I have a query joining 4 tables with a lot of conditions in the WHERE clause. The query also includes ORDER BY clause on a numeric column. It takes 6 seconds to return which is too long and I need to speed it up. Surprisingly I found that if I remove the ORDER BY clause it takes 2 seconds. Why the order by makes so massive difference and how to optimize it? I am using SQL server 2005. Many thanks.

I cannot confirm that the ORDER BY makes big difference since I am clearing the execution plan cache. However can you shed light at how to speed this up a little bit? The query is as follows (for simplicity there is "SELECT *" but I am only selecting the ones I need).

SELECT *
FROM View_Product_Joined j 
INNER JOIN [dbo].[OPR_PriceLookup] pl on pl.siteID = NodeSiteID and pl.skuid = j.skuid 
LEFT JOIN [dbo].[OPR_InventoryRules] irp on irp.ID = pl.SkuID and irp.InventoryRulesType = 'Product'
LEFT JOIN [dbo].[OPR_InventoryRules] irs on irs.ID = pl.siteID and irs.InventoryRulesType = 'Store'
WHERE (((((SiteName = N'EcommerceSite') AND (Published = 1)) AND (DocumentCulture = N'en-GB')) AND (NodeAliasPath LIKE N'/Products/Cats/Computers/Computer-servers/%')) AND ((NodeSKUID IS NOT NULL) AND (SKUEnabled = 1) AND pl.PriceLookupID in (select TOP 1 PriceLookupID from OPR_PriceLookup pl2 where pl.skuid = pl2.skuid and (pl2.RoleID = -1 or pl2.RoleId = 13) order by pl2.RoleID desc))) 
ORDER BY NodeOrder ASC

Answer 1

Why the order by makes so massive difference and how to optimize it?

The ORDER BY needs to sort the resultset which may take long if it's big.

To optimize it, you may need to index the tables properly.

The index access path, however, has its drawbacks so it can even take longer.

If you have something other than equijoins in your query, or the ranged predicates (like <, > or BETWEEN, or GROUP BY clause), then the index used for ORDER BY may prevent the other indexes from being used.

If you post the query, I'll probably be able to tell you how to optimize it.

Update:

Rewrite the query:

SELECT  *
FROM    View_Product_Joined j 
LEFT JOIN
        [dbo].[OPR_InventoryRules] irp
ON      irp.ID = j.skuid
        AND irp.InventoryRulesType = 'Product'
LEFT JOIN
        [dbo].[OPR_InventoryRules] irs
ON      irs.ID = j.NodeSiteID
        AND irs.InventoryRulesType = 'Store'
CROSS APPLY
        (
        SELECT  TOP 1 *
        FROM    OPR_PriceLookup pl
        WHERE   pl.siteID = j.NodeSiteID
                AND pl.skuid = j.skuid
                AND pl.RoleID IN (-1, 13)
        ORDER BY
                pl.RoleID desc
        ) pl
WHERE   SiteName = N'EcommerceSite'
        AND Published = 1
        AND DocumentCulture = N'en-GB'
        AND NodeAliasPath LIKE N'/Products/Cats/Computers/Computer-servers/%'
        AND NodeSKUID IS NOT NULL
        AND SKUEnabled = 1
ORDER BY
        NodeOrder ASC

The relation View_Product_Joined, as the name suggests, is probably a view.

Could you please post its definition?

If it is indexable, you may benefit from creating an index on View_Product_Joined (SiteName, Published, DocumentCulture, SKUEnabled, NodeOrder).