A LEFT [OUTER] JOIN can be faster than an equivalent subquery because the server         might be able to optimize it better—a fact that is not specific to MySQL Server alone.

SELECT
    table1.this, table2.that, table2.somethingelse
FROM
    table1, table2
WHERE
    table1.foreignkey = table2.primarykey
    AND (some other conditions)

SELECT
    table1.this, table2.that, table2.somethingelse
FROM
    table1 INNER JOIN table2
    ON table1.foreignkey = table2.primarykey
WHERE
    (some other conditions)

Answer :