Can I get better performance using a JOIN or using EXISTS?

Question

I have two tables Institutions and Results and I want to see if there are any results for institutions that way I can exclude the ones that don\'t have results.

Can

Answer 1

If the RESULTS table has more than one row per INSTITUTION, EXISTS() has the added benefit of not requiring you to select distinct Institutions.

As for performance, I have seen joins, IN(), and EXISTS() each be fastest in a variety of uses. To find the best method for your purposes you must test.