SQL Server Query Optimizer Cost Formulas
These are the slidedecks that I used for my SQL Bits presentation on Scaling Data Warehouse on Big Iron Systems. The slidedecks could probably support 4 hours, and the session was only 1 hour, so I will try to write it up as an article. Some of this is already done. See the Parallelism section in Cost Based Optimizer the NUMA chapter in System Architecture, and the Storage section.
Storage Configuration, NOVA 2009
SQL Server 2005 Performance Enhancements for Large Queries