Question

When creating a query that joins 2 tables. I thought of 2 possible ways to write the query.
Below is a simplified example. Could you please let me know which would be faster?

SELECT t1.a,
       t2.a
FROM   table1 t1
       JOIN table2 t2
         ON t1.b = t2.b
WHERE  t2.c = 'test' 

OR

SELECT t1.a,
       t2.a
FROM   table1 t1
       JOIN (SELECT a, b
             FROM   table2
             WHERE  c = 'test') t2
         ON t1.b = t2.b 

Answer 1

They should give exactly the same plan.

SQL Server will easily transform one to the other. Checking the execution plan is the only way to know for sure though.