Does (gzip -dc | tar -x) substantially better then (tar -xz) ?

[shaulka at 012.net.il]

  2.10 has the following line

     gzip -dc /var/tmp/base.tgz | tar -C $FAI_ROOT -xpf -

in /usr/lib/fai/subroutines-linux:task_extrbase()

My question is if  that line is substantially better then 

    tar -xzpf /var/tmp/base.tgz -C $FAI_ROOT

?