Stripping time from GETDATE(), 2008 edition

Stripping the time from GETDATE() to get the date at 00:00:00 is a common practice, and has been accomplished by various methods in the past, including CASTing to VARCHAR and back, using DATEADD and DATEDIFF, and using FLOOR after casting to INT.  It should be less necessary these days since the introduction of the DATE data type, but sometimes it's still a useful comparison trick.

And now because of DATE there's a simpler way to do the conversion: CAST(@dt as DATE).  But is this any faster?

The short answer is no, but it doesn't seem to be any slower either.  I ran a quick test:

declare @dtest datetime
declare @i int = 0, @j int = 0
declare @start datetime

set @start = GETDATE()

while @i < 1000000
begin
    set @dtest = DATEADD(dd, 0, DATEDIFF(dd, 0, GETDATE()))
    set @i = @i + 1
end
    
print datediff(ms, @start, getdate())
set @start = GETDATE()

while @j < 1000000
begin
    set @dtest = CAST(GETDATE() as DATE)
    set @j = @j + 1
end

print datediff(ms, @start, getdate())

In half a dozen runs, the two versions never varied by more than a handful of ms.  Feel free to try on your own and let me know if you see anything different.