>Hi,
>
>Is there SQL Select that can be used to select X number of records without using TOP (I find TOP is too slow). The SQL Select will have a WHERE expression but I want to return only certain number of records even if WHERE finds more.
>
>TIA.

In SQL Server 2005 and up look up paging with ROW_NUMBER() function.

It will require a derived table approach or CTE

;with cte as (select ..., row_number() over (ORDER BY myOrder) as Row from myTable)

select .. from cte where Row <= @SomeNumber ORDER BY Row