With Intel's new line does base clock rate matter? (e.g. 12700 vs 12700K)

[Mr Jack]

With the current generation of CPUs, unlike my current 6600K, there seems to be a massive difference between base and boost clock rate. For example with the 12700 the base rate is a lowly 2.1Ghz, but it boosts to 4.9GHz. Meanwhile the biggest difference between the 12700 and the 12700K (other than allowing overclocking, obvs.) is that the base rate in the 12700K is much higher at 3.6GHz, while the boosted rates are almost identical at 4.9 and 5.0. That higher base rate also pushes the base power draw up 60W.

Performance-wise, is this difference in base rate important? Or can the chips be trusted to hit those boost rates as soon as needed? Or, put another way, if I'm not looking at overclocking is it worth paying for a higher base rate or should I just consider the turbo rate?

If relevant, I'm more interested in the performance for software development work than for gaming (but the latter is nice too).

 

[Mr Jack]

12700 lower base frequency is to make it a 65w cpu theoretically

Thanks for the answer, that confirms what I thought. Do I take it from your smiley that this wattage figure is rather misrepresenting its draw in normal usage? And the real world draw is similar between the chips?