Optimizing tips for CPU usage on SQL Server database servers

I'm currently working on a project that places a somewhat heavy toll on the CPU of the database server, as complex queries need to be run often. In my quest to get most of the current hardware, I wanted to do some CPU bottleneck analysis. Now, there are many ways on how to address CPU issues, but first and foremost, it should be about making sure the software executing those SQL queries has been optimized for well-performing queries. Sometimes eliminating a join or limiting sorting (if you don't have the correct indexes in place) can make a huge difference.

Performance monitoring is best done with Windows' Performance Monitor, which contains many performance indicators ("counters") for SQL Server. Of course, there are SQL Server's own tools, like Activity Monitor and the Profiler.

While looking for information on the Internet, I found a nice MSDN Magazine article on the topic from 2009. Although it doesn't cover the latest SQL Server versions, it's new enough to be useful even as we're looking to get SQL Server 2014 out soon.

The article is titled "Optimizing SQL Server CPU Performance", check it out.