Is JSON.parse! faster?

json_parse_bang.rb

require 'rubygems'
require 'json/ext'
require 'benchmark'

N = 1000

JSON_STRING = <<-EOS
{"searchRequest": {
  "id": 0,
  "pickUpDate": "2008-12-22 12:00:00.0 GMT+08:00",
  "dropOffDate": "2008-12-28 12:00:00.0 GMT+08:00",
  "sameDropOffLocation": true,
  "pickUp": {
    "id": 7046,
    "country": {
      "id": 14,
      "code": "AU",
      "name": "Australia"
    },
    "state": {
      "id": 52,
      "code": "NSW",
      "name": "New South Wales"
    },
    "code": "SYD",
    "name": "Sydney",
    "locationType": "CITY"
  },
  "dropOff": {
    "id": 7046,
    "country": {
      "id": 14,
      "code": "AU",
      "name": "Australia"
    },
    "state": {
      "id": 52,
      "code": "NSW",
      "name": "New South Wales"
    },
    "code": "SYD",
    "name": "Sydney",
    "locationType": "CITY"
  },
  "searchedDate": "2008-12-01 11:21:30.929 GMT+08:00",
  "countryOfResidence": {
    "id": 14,
    "code": "AU",
    "name": "Australia"
  },
  "userAge": 27,
  "providerList": [
    "europcar.com",
    "hertz.com"
  ],
  "instanceId": "bade2c0442450cc3788fe3264db7a30dead4e275"
}}
EOS

Benchmark.bm do |x|
  x.report('json:parse') do
    N.times do
      JSON.parse(JSON_STRING)
    end
  end

  x.report('json:parse!') do
    N.times do
      JSON.parse!(JSON_STRING)
    end
  end
end

Results

      user     system      total        real
json:parse  0.100000   0.010000   0.110000 (  0.106557)
json:parse!  0.110000   0.000000   0.110000 (  0.129599)