Re: Count massively faster than select on same query, why?!?!

[Bob Field]

Without seeing the output of EXPLAIN, I'm guessing that the query using COUNT(*) is taking advantage of the indexing and able to count the rows that way, whereas the other query has to read the table data itself to retrieve the data for all the other fields. Try a query like this:

SELECT colum1, column2, column4
FROM xyz
WHERE colum1="abc", column2="def" and "column4="ghi";

I.e., take the second query and only name the columns referenced in the WHERE clause.