Large Result Set Not Loading In ASP.NET Core - asp.net-mvc

Question

I created an out-of-the-box project (ASP.NET Core 4.6.2) using Entity Framework and added a simple data model (book). This book has a name, description, and price. I've added some sample data to my database (SQL Server 2016) to test the speed of the views. The linq query took less than a second to return 58K records. Then, the controller immediately passed the result to the view. The view spun for about 3 minutes, and then timed out and returned a 502.3 Bad Gateway.
I was under the impression that Core was extremely fast and could handle extremely large data sets (upwards of 2-6M). If you need a sample of code, here goes:
BooksController.cs:
var books = db.Books.ToList();
return View(books);
Index.cshtml:
#model IEnumerable<TestCoreApp.Models.Book>
<h2>Index</h2>
<p>
<a asp-action="Create">Create New</a>
</p>
<table class="table">
<thead>
<tr>
<th>
#Html.DisplayNameFor(model => model.Name)
</th>
<th>
#Html.DisplayNameFor(model => model.Description)
</th>
<th>
#Html.DisplayNameFor(model => model.Price)
</th>
<th></th>
</tr>
</thead>
<tbody>
#foreach (var item in Model)
{
<tr>
<td>
#Html.DisplayFor(modelItem => item.Name)
</td>
<td>
#Html.DisplayFor(modelItem => item.Description)
</td>
<td>
#Html.DisplayFor(modelItem => item.Price)
</td>
<td>
<a asp-action="Edit" asp-route-id="#item.Id">Edit</a> |
<a asp-action="Details" asp-route-id="#item.Id">Details</a> |
<a asp-action="Delete" asp-route-id="#item.Id">Delete</a>
</td>
</tr>
}
</tbody>
</table>

Answer 1

A system is only as strong as its code allows. Two easy/quick ways to improve response time would be:
1) Make the View asynchronous.
2) Mark the database query as "No Tracking" when no changes will be made to the data from the current View. Adding this flag to a query makes it so the context doesn't track changes to the data. So if you DID make an update, context.SaveChanges() wouldn't save them. And if your view doesn't have any edit capabilities, it should always be there.
Using my own Index view from an app I'm working on now:
public async Task<IActionResult> Index(bool hideDisabledUsers = true) {
ViewData["hideDisabledUsers"] = hideDisabledUsers;
var employeeList = _context.Employees
.OrderBy(e => e.LastName);
if (hideDisabledUsers)
employeeList = employeeList.Where(e => e.AccessLevel != AccessType.Disabled);
return View(await employeeList.AsNoTracking().ToListAsync());
}
Note the changed method signature and return type, and how the LINQ query is built in steps. The query doesn't actually hit the database until the .ToListAsync()
Someone else may be able to provide more technical answers on performance, or more ways to make it performant, but using these two methods should show a noticeable improvement to your test.