There are a number of subquery performance improvements in MySQL 5.6 (including semi join and materialization). These are not dependent on query cache. 5.7 al

There are a number of subquery performance improvements in MySQL 5.6 (including semi join and materialization). These are not dependent on query cache. 5.7 also added a new derived merge optimization (subquery in the from clause). No current plans to add materialized views.