REG or GPO - Who wins if both set

A setting that can set by either a change via regedit or set via a group policy, than which setting will take priority ?

Am I right in thinking that settings via group policy just get written in the registry in a "special" location 'policies' ...

Example - The GPO might write key/values here
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Policies\Microsoft\Windows\WindowsUpdate

Example - The historical place to change the settings
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\WindowsUpdate


I've had this question in my head for over 10 years - never got around to asking!

thanks