An often overlooked feature of SQL Server Enterprise Edition is support for advanced scanning, referred to as merry-go-round scans.  Often I'm asked about the differences between enteprise edition and standard, this is one that I often forget about this one.  Recently I was researching some information on read-consistency problems ( nolock etc) and came across this type of scan.  There are many resources about the differences, i've quoted some here below, and also list the reference.

From:

http://blogs.msdn.com/boduff/archive/2008/01/24/why-should-i-use-sql-enterprise-edition.aspx

http://www.microsoft.com/Sqlserver/2005/en/us/compare-features.aspx

http://www.sqlmag.com/Articles/Print.cfm?ArticleID=49285

There are some key enterprise edition only performance benefits across RAM, Parallelism, Query Plans and DISK I/O that will lead to better performance on high end systems, which I will try to list here.

1) Lock Pages in Memory

Lock Pages In Memory" allows SQL Server 2005 to manage its own memory (as opposed to having the operating system do it). It is extremely important to give this right to the SQL Server Service account, especially on 64-bit SQL Server 2005 systems with lots of RAM. It also is required on 32-bit systems to enable AWE.

See http://blogs.msdn.com/psssql/archive/2007/10/18/do-i-have-to-assign-the-lock-privilege-for-local-system.aspx

2) Advanced Scanning (aka Merry-go-round scan)

In SQL Server Enterprise Edition, the advanced scan feature allows multiple tasks to share full table scans. If the execution plan of a Transact-SQL statement requires a scan of the data pages in a table and the Database Engine detects that the table is already being scanned for another execution plan, the Database Engine joins the second scan to the first, at the current location of the second scan. The Database Engine reads each page one time and passes the rows from each page to both execution plans. This continues until the end of the table is reached.

See http://msdn2.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms191475.aspx and  Merry-Go-Round Culprits for performance variances

3) Larger Read Ahead Buffering on Storage Devices

Determining I/O section mentions that EE does up to 1024k read ahead buffering on a Storage Area Network (std only does 64k). This indicates that EE is more suitable to SAN’s which need more buffering due to increased latency.

http://www.microsoft.com/technet/prodtechnol/sql/bestpractice/pdpliobp.mspx

4) Large Page Extensions

SQL Enterprise Edition retrieves pages up to eight at a go.

http://msdn2.microsoft.com/en-us/library/aa337525.aspx

5) Parallel index Operations

This is particularly useful in data warehouses where indexes may be frequently dropped and re-created.

http://msdn2.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms189329.aspx