What's the difference between PowerPivot and regular pivot tables?

Question

I keep reading how PowerPivot lets Excel process "millions of rows" (!!). I'm already doing this with a regular old pivot table hooked up to a (relational) SQL database. What does PowerPivot do differently?

Answer 1

PowerPivot features:

1. Take advantage of familiar Excel tools and features
2. Process massive amounts of data in seconds
3. Load even the largest data sets from virtually any source
4. Use powerful new analytical capabilities, such as Data Analysis Expressions (DAX)
5. Make the most of multi-core processors and gigabytes of memory

You can read the datasheet for more info.

In short, it seems that it was built more efficiently, to handle larger data loads, automatically parallelizes across cores, and has more analysis tools.

Answer 2

Also allows you to create joins even across separate data sources.