Take a look in IL and you will see that CLR use Boxing just for Equals.
Equals should be slower.
//000004: Dim myDate As Date
//000005: If myDate.Equals(Date.MinValue) Then
IL_0001: ldloca.s myDate
IL_0003: ldsfld valuetype [mscorlib]System.DateTime
[mscorlib]System.DateTime::MinValue
IL_0008: box [mscorlib]System.DateTime
IL_000d: call instance bool
[mscorlib]System.DateTime::Equals(object)
IL_0012: brfalse.s IL_0014
//000006:
//000007: End If
IL_0014: nop
//000008: If myDate = Date.MinValue Then
IL_0015: ldloc.0
IL_0016: ldsfld valuetype [mscorlib]System.DateTime
[mscorlib]System.DateTime::MinValue
IL_001b: call int32
[mscorlib]System.DateTime::Compare(valuetype [mscorlib]System.DateTime,
valuetype [mscorlib]System.DateTime)
IL_0020: ldc.i4.0
IL_0021: bne.un.s IL_0023
//000009:
//000010: End If
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