Even I, who takes pessimisation avoidance seriously, is (am?) having considerable trouble taking this question seriously. (Geez that is clumsy wording.)

More so because you purport to be worried enough to ask the question, but not enough to take the simplest steps to discover the answer for yourself. Vis:

C:\test>perl -MO=Deparse -e" my $check = ($y eq $z); "
my $check = $y eq $z;
-e syntax OK

C:\test>perl -MO=Deparse -e"my $check = $y eq $z;"
my $check = $y eq $z;
-e syntax OK
[download]

Why bother responding. Simple. Cos it took less tham 2 minutes to do so--and the adverts last 3.