Not sure if this thread is for us lowly 290 non x owners as well
I got mine yesterday though and it seems to be working a treat. I'm not a crazy overclocker person or fps chaser so I haven't got many stats for you but I did try some BF4 with everything turned up and it seemed to be averaging 70-80 fps with dips to 60s and highs of 100-110. I think I'm very much CPU limited at the moment as I have a i5 Ivy bridge @ stock (I know blasphemy!). I did notice the temps shoot up straight to 90C after 5 minutes of play as well as the fan at 40% which does make a little bit of noise slightly less than my 5870 reference card.
I would say for the average gamer it might be too loud but for a budget performance gamer like myself it isn't too bad nothing that turning the volume up two notches can't drown out
I'm sure people with better cases and such would notice the sound a lot less!
I'm pretty impressed by the card though even though I don't check out fps all that often every game I tried felt 5x more responsive!