Proceeding first plugin installation and activation, I’ve initialized a table in database for plugin-related data using the statement ‘CREATE … IF NOT EXISTS’ :

$init_query = 'CREATE TABLE IF NOT EXISTS `' . $this->db_prefix . $table_name . '` ' . $table;
$init_query .= ' ' . $this->db_charset_collate();
$prepare_init_query = $this->db->prepare( $init_query );
$run_init_query = execute_query( $prepare_init_query );

Would this be the ideal way to go about initializing a table registering the plugin activation hook with class containing the code above or is it better to just use query condition like:

if($wpdb->get_var("SHOW TABLES LIKE '$table_name'") != $table_name) {

in terms of overhead.