collections vs hashtable

[daemonk]

I noticed that you can insert an object into a collection with a key and also retrieve the object by the key. Does the retrieve by key function of a collection work the same as a hashtable? Is it slower or faster?

I plan to use sql to return data from a database already sorted and then put the data into a hashtable. The data is already pre-sorted. I just need the hashtable to be ordered by how the data is added.