What's quicker and better to determine if an array key exists in PHP?

Consider these 2 examples...

$key = 'jim';

// example 1
if (isset($array[$key])) {
    // ...
}

// example 2    
if (array_key_exists($key, $array)) {
    // ...
}

I'm interested in knowing if either of these are better. I've always used the first, but have seen a lot of people use the second example on this site.

So, which is better? Faster? Clearer intent?

isset() is faster, but it's not the same as array_key_exists().

array_key_exists() purely checks if the key exists, even if the value is NULL.

Whereas isset() will return false if the key exist and value is NULL.

If you are interested in some tests I've done recently:

https://stackoverflow.com/a/21759158/520857

Summary:

| Method Name                              | Run time             | Difference
=========================================================================================
| NonExistant::noCheckingTest()            | 0.86004090309143     | +18491.315775911%
| NonExistant::emptyTest()                 | 0.0046701431274414   | +0.95346080503016%
| NonExistant::isnullTest()                | 0.88424181938171     | +19014.461681183%
| NonExistant::issetTest()                 | 0.0046260356903076   | Fastest
| NonExistant::arrayKeyExistsTest()        | 1.9001779556274      | +209.73055713%