Oh, and you can use the sledge hammer of tuning by using the set enable_xxx = off settings for the planner. It's not a normal way to tune most queries, but it certainly can let you know if the problem is using the index or not. psql mydb \timing select count(*) from table where field > 12345; set enable_seqscan=off; select count(*) from table where field > 12345; and compare them. run each a few times, since the cache will affect the performance. ---------------------------(end of broadcast)--------------------------- TIP 9: In versions below 8.0, the planner will ignore your desire to choose an index scan if your joining column's datatypes do not match