Decent GPU...but it sure as hell isn't $150 better than a 290X or $300 better than a 290. Had they made this version at $600 and the 6GB at this $700 price, it'd be a winner, but paying $150 more for a card that's VRAM starved is just ridiculous. I wouldn't settle for anything less than 4GB at this sort of price, not even at my "low" 1080p resolution, as I've seen BF4 and Crysis go into the 2.5GB-2.8GB mark on the old Tahitis. 4GB is what I consider "safe with some headroom left" for future titles at 1080p, any setup above that and I wouldn't recommend going anywhere near a card with less than 4GB.
And I'm not buying into the BS of the crazy OC this card manage to pull off either, pretty certain Nvidia sent out their best samples; everyone and their grandma were shouting about the old Keplers overclocking to the moon and yet I've had 2 different ones that could barely stay stable at normal boost clocks. Fair play to you if yours managed it, but I'm still going to take my pessimistic approach when looking at overclocks of review samples.
I think that about settles it: R290X/290 with non-reference cooling for me. This lead is nothing that can't be made up with better drivers later down the road IMHO. This GPU has a huge lead in driver performance that I think is going to close once AMD's Mantle and normal driver updates come into play, and even if they don't, at $700 I want either a 6GB version or a ton of freebies to make up the difference.
BTW w1z, are you going to add BF4 to your review benchmarks anytime soon? I'd be interested to see what sort of lead this card has over the 290X in this game, if any.
*EDIT* nevermind, missed the ninja'd post above mine.