identity conditional "===" , performance, and conversion

I've always came away from stackoverflow answers and any reading I've done that "===" is superior to "==" because uses a more strict comparison, and you do not waste resources converting value types in order to check for a match.

I may be coming at this with the wrong assumption, so I assume part of this question is, "is my assumption true?"

Secondly,

I'm dealing specifically with a situation where I'm getting data from a database in the form of a string "100".

The code I am comparing is this...

    if ($this->the_user->group == 100) //admin
    {
        Response::redirect('admin/home');
    }
    else   // other
    {
        Response::redirect('user/home');
    }

vs.

    if ( (int) $this->the_user->group === 100) //admin
    {
        Response::redirect('admin/home');
    }
    else   // other
    {
        Response::redirect('user/home');
    }

or even

    if (intval($this->the_user->group) === 100) //admin
    {
        Response::redirect('admin/home');
    }
    else   // other
    {
        Response::redirect('user/home');
    }

is any integrity (or performance) gained by manually casting or converting simply so you can use the identity ('===') comparison?