Actually if you look around a lot of 290's are disappearing which suggests that the stock is drying up, they've also suddenly been hitting £290 in daily sales at various places suggesting a push to move them all of a sudden. Also Gibbo was told likely about the 290x, or asked more specifically about the 290x because why wouldn't you.
Thing of it is, aside from the lower cards unlocking(honestly don't know how many do) and because of the massive value increase at not much slower and hugely cheaper, the 290's are more important.
IE there isn't much room for awesome pcb's, custom features and custom cooling at £300, but there is at £400-500. So it sounds like we're getting 290's with custom cooling and the 290x's will probably be a bit more custom as in new pcb's, overvolting options and improved cooling. The AIB's have more room to work in with £400+ cards and a customer who is more interested in flat out performance than value, where at £300 people are buying because of the value rather than the last 5% performance, two entirely different segments.
custom pcb's, and coolers set for those pcb's takes longer.
