Well, to start with in my performance testing SQL 2005 process data about 30% faster than SQL 2000 when running on identicle hardware. My test results are posted around here somewhere.
Standard Edition gets you up to 4 Gigs of RAM while SQL 2000 Standard only gives you 2 Gigs. SSIS gives you a host of new features for your ETL needs.
SQL 2005 now supports schemas. The security is much more grannular and functional.
Non-sysadmins can run profiler if granted the correct rights.
Service broker allows you to send fire and forget messages from one SQL Server to another without needing another message queue system (MSMQ, etc).
Tighter integration with VSS and Visual Studio.
The ability to load up Visual Studio dll's into the SQL Server and use them as functions, data types, procedures, etc (if the server is configured to allow this).
The dedicated admin connection which will allow an admin to connect via SQLCMD (the new osql) and see what processes are killing the system if all the schedulers are hung (happens every once and a while).
SMTP based email is supported out of the box.
Database mirroring.
Standard Edition supports Clustering.
Enterprise Edition supports online index rebuilding.
Is that enough info? I'm sure I can come up with some more. Check out the Microsoft site, they've got a full feature breakdown.
Denny
MCSA (2003) / MCDBA (SQL 2000) / MCTS (SQL 2005) / MCITP Database Administrator (SQL 2005)
--Anything is possible. All it takes is a little research. (Me)