Well i mean, it could be true that the 290X is slightly higher priced than a GTX 780. However, in term the few "benchmark leaks" (there is even a official "leak") are true the 290X could be a bit ahead in performance compared to 780 GTX. Thats good enough to charge a small bonus, but im pretty sure the 780 TI will be at comparable price and performance. The 290X isnt truly competing against a GTX 780, its competing against the "soon to be released" 780 TI. I expect the 780 TI to be at least 10% faster (compared to the old 780) and it may even beat the 290X at certain games but probably not all of them (so its more or less equal, thats how Nvidia would enjoy it to be).
Some people may say, "but my GTX 780 is a overclock beast, as high as 1300 Mhz or whatever" and they are unsure that a 290X may clock the same. But all that stuff is simply guessing, in term the architecture is comparable to the old GCN, there is a good chance for very high clocks (pretty much comparable to the 7970). On top of that, overclocking is always "luck of trades" its never foolproof, not even on a 780 GTX. So, not every 780 GTX is a "overclock beast", luck is always a requirement, it doesnt work without. Same will apply to the 290X, but considering the very powerful memory bus, the overclocking potential is probably not any lower than a 780 GTX. So i dont think that there is any disadvantage regarding overclocking but ultimately we simply lack a proof, so there is just guessing... not more than that.
At current situation, AMD and Nvidia arnt trying hard enough in order to beat each others. The true intention how they want it to be is that they simply have comparable performance and comparable price on both sides, thats the way with currently lowest financial losses, it seems. In term they are trying to beat each others to harsh, its not necessarely very economic, thats not in the interest of companys who would like to make bucks. Especially AMD is still in a pretty high debt of about 1 billion $ or something, they cant afford to throw around with expensive R+D all the time and countless new designs*. But even Nvidia isnt having endless juice and they are pretty much in the same boat such as AMD, but they got some stronger financial backup at current time. Needless to say that pool may not last forever, so even Nvidia have to look at the costs.
*However, the "rebranding" and lack of full scaled sound chips implementations is indeed a sign of weakness and isnt looking to good. To be fair, Nvidia was the first "rebrander" considering several cards of the 700 series, and most people was shouting around in tears because of joy (wow, Nvidia is so powerful, wow Nvidia is bringing new cards...). Although AMDs "rebranding" is at a even higher scale and its somewhat going to far. At least the pricing of the rebranded cards is very competitive and lower than most of the comparable offers Nvidia got (at current time). The mainstream is certainly able to get very good priced yet powerful cards (for less than 300 $) and it will be able to increase the "average hardware level" of mainstream gamers a lot, so the devs are able to create more demanding games without the lack of "buyers". So its not all that bad but many of us would have expected more than that.
