“Clustered index” and “Order by Clause”

Question

Is there any difference between Clustered Index and Order by Clause?

I have to populate the Dropdown from the Master Table and followin

Answer 1

A clustered index and an order by clause are two completely different things. A clustered index decides how the rows in the stored table are sorted. An order by clause decides how the results of the query should be ordered.

A nonclustered index creates another "shadow table" in the DB storage, which is ordered on the indexed columns. It also contains the primary key, so that it can quickly find the right row in the "real" table. A best practice for database design is to create a clustered index on the primary key (unless there are reasons against it). Any other columns that need to be indexed can be handled in nonclustered indexes.

To optimize performance it is much more important that the where clause conditions can use an index than that the order by can.