At this time, it could still depend on your choice of games. The 780 would be faster and less buggy in games like Total War.
In cross platform, console ported games, the 290x will be faster. People are complaining about thermal performance and noise performance of the 290x. Not sure if that bothers you.
I want the 290x!! I would love to use it for heating up my room at the upcoming winter. I love the blower/exhaust types. They really heat up the place!
I also have noise canceling headphones which I put on no matter the situation.
I would currently pick up a 780 if i could, but I think once they release the AM cooler models I would definitely consider it. right now I think I'm going to be just fine with a R9-280X
I would obviously get a 290x. It's equal or faster than the Titan(According the majority of reviewers). It's also 450$ cheaper. It should be faster in compute programs also (didn't see much of those numbers).
Even with the horrid cooler, that can be fixed with an aftermarket cooler or water-block. I'm not in the market for a new GPU now, so I'd be okay with waiting for the non-reference cards, but AMD really is pushing the market forward. Obviously, this card is launching 50$ more than the 7970 did, but the way NVidia is pricing their cards... It makes NVidia look like Apple (good marketing/keynotes/high prices/lots of customers).
Please compare the 290x to its direct competitor the 780GTX, the Titan is just a compute card and isn't really designed for games and it's pricing is just stupid :)
The 290x is cheaper so it might be the better pick but the numbers I am seeing right now are all over the place. I would wait and see how things unfold in the next few weeks when more people get there hands on the 290x and the 780ti is release.
I'd buy 2 R290 X gpus and just not buy any gas to heat my flat probably work out cheaper than buying gas >_> lol.
But in all seriousness i think the 290x may have some overclocking potential when we see the aftermarket cards...why in the world AMD have not let anyone do a aftermarket cards (antil dec) is beyond me the card is obviously struggling with the crazy heat its outputing at the moment top over clocks have been just under 1100mhz and thats just sad.
In my opinion this card is just not worth buying in its current state anless you just whant to bilud a uber water cooled AMD only flashy look at me rig.
yeah current OC stuff looks a bit disappointing, although i do like the new method of clocking they are implementing, perhaps its just a case of driver support and learning the best why to clock using this different method thats restricting it (along with the cooler).