HOTSPOT
You administer a Microsoft SQL Server 2012 database instance.
The instance is running on a server with the following configuration:
• 1TB RAM
• SAN storage for database and log files
• 4 quad-core processors
• 64-Bit Windows 2008R2 operating system
This instance hosts a database with large partitioned tables. Users report that complex
queries are taking a long time to complete.
While troubleshooting, you discover that CPU utilization is low (less than 20 percent), disk
activity is low (little or no waiting processes), and no significant blocking is occurring.
You need to ensure that the instance can process queries as quickly and efficiently as
possible.
Which setting should you configure?
Answer: 
Since the server has 4xQuad core processors, I would set the MAXDOP (Maximum Degree of Parallelims) to 8. Any other opinion ?
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Setting maximum degree of parallelism to 0 allows SQL Server to use all the available processors up to 64 processors.
If the computer has only one processor, the max degree of parallelism value is ignored.
In this case Max Degree of Parallelism can be max 4 (4 x Quad core processors).
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