Hi Paula >Other then use sort_area_size to sort in memory and parallel query what >can be done to optimize a pull of 2 large tables joined together where >most of the rows from both tables are selected??? First of all a hash join use the memory that is configured via = hash_area_size and not sort_area_size. A possibility to further speed up joins (in addition to memory and PX) = is to use partition-wise joins. In the tuning guide you find information = about it. Notice that to take out the max, the execution of a = partition-wise join should be parallelized. HTH Chris -- //www.freelists.org/webpage/oracle-l