Is Vpoke-ing sprites actually faster?

I read that you can get a speed boost in basic by using VPOKE instead of putsprite, so I tracked down the memory location and tried it, but it doesn't seem to be any faster... Unless I'm doing it wrong.

Here's what I tried:

10 SCREEN1:CLS
20 SPRITE$(0)=CHR$(&HD8)+CHR$(&H50)+CHR$(&HF8)+CHR$(&HA8)+CHR$(&H73)+CHR$(&H3E)+CHR$(&H7E)+CHR$(&HC7)
30 '** TEST1 PUTSPRITE 1
40 TIME=0:X=0:Y=99:A=10
50 X=X+1
60 PUTSPRITE0,(X,Y),15,0
70 IF X>254 AND A>0 THEN X=0:A=A-1
80 IF A=0 THEN GOTO 100
90 GOTO 50
100 PRINT TIME
110 '** TEST2 PUTSPRITE 2
120 TIME=0:X=0:Y=99:A=10
130 X=X+1
140 PUTSPRITE0,(X,Y)
150 IF X>254 AND A>0 THEN X=0:A=A-1
160 IF A=0 THEN GOTO 180
170 GOTO 130
180 PRINT TIME
190 '** TEST3 VPOKE 1
200 TIME=0:X=0:Y=99:A=10
210 X=X+1
220 VPOKE BASE(8),Y:VPOKE BASE(8)+1,X
230 IF X>254 AND A>0 THEN X=0:A=A-1
240 IF A=0 THEN GOTO 260
250 GOTO 210
260 PRINT TIME
270 '** TEST4 VPOKE 2
280 TIME=0:X=0:Y=99:A=10
290 X=X+1
300 VPOKE 6912,Y:VPOKE 6913,X
310 IF X>254 AND A>0 THEN X=0:A=A-1
320 IF A=0 THEN GOTO 340
330 GOTO 290
340 PRINT TIME

For test 1 "Putsprite 0,(X,Y),15,0" I got 2579
For test 2 "Putsprite 0,(X,Y)" I got 2356
For test 3 "Vpoke Base(8)" I got 3179
For test 4 "Vpoke 6912" I got 2403

It seems that Put Sprite minus the color and sprite definition is actually faster than Vpoke-ing the X and Y.

But perhaps one of you who are more experienced know how to Vpoke the sprite position better? I couldn't figure out how to combine both the X and Y coordinates into one Vpoke.