A higher ASIC quality does generally indicate lower power consumption.
I would have to agree with this.
i got my 780 up to 1.3ghz (under water) at 1.21v which is reasonably decent i think.
the only issue i had was throttling due to the bios deciding that it was going over the TDP limits. So i had to edit the bios to adjust the TDP value.
I dont think a lower asci value would have had me at 1.3ghz with 1.21v stock boost would have probably been 1.21v and i wont use more than that as its the safe 24/7 voltage "i did have to adjust that too as the card only wanted to use 1.18v"
So i guess if i was not editing the bios the lower asci quality would have allowed me to get higher clock speeds. BUT i would have hit a tdp limit sooner and so would have had more throttling.
I dont think asci quality is THAT important unless you are water cooling and willing to mod the bios to change the volts "if needed" and set the TDP limit higher because you arent using the stock cooler any more
