Adding a range of values to an ObservableCollection efficiently

The ObservableCollection exposes an protected Items property which is the underlying collection without the notification semantics. This means you can build a collection that does what you want by inheriting ObservableCollection:

class RangeEnabledObservableCollection<T> : ObservableCollection<T>
{
    public void InsertRange(IEnumerable<T> items) 
    {
        this.CheckReentrancy();
        foreach(var item in items)
            this.Items.Add(item);
        this.OnCollectionChanged(new NotifyCollectionChangedEventArgs(NotifyCollectionChangedAction.Reset));
    }
}

Usage:

void Main()
{
    var collection = new RangeEnabledObservableCollection<int>();
    collection.CollectionChanged += (s,e) => Console.WriteLine("Collection changed");
    collection.InsertRange(Enumerable.Range(0,100));
    Console.WriteLine("Collection contains {0} items.", collection.Count);  
}