The hoary old question about lower cost queries running faster or slower that higher cost queries has appeared once again on the OTN database forum. It’s one I’ve addressed numerous times in the past – including on this blog– but the Internet being what it is the signal keeps getting swamped by the noise. This time around a couple of “new” thoughts crossed my mind when reading the question.
There is a Time column on the standard forms of the execution plan output, and the description of this column is available in the manuals and has been for years (here’s a definition from v$sql_plan from 10gR2, for example):