Thread over on OCN. If this turns out true than they will sell a boat load of these 290's. Seems like this may very well be possible. 

http://www.overclock.net/t/1442692/vc-powercolor-radeon-r9-290-unlocked-into-r9-290x

If this is true wow

And again, my known words. I told you...
They unlock every year something, and when you fight to beat R9-290 with your 1000$ Titan AMD prepare Vesuvius, 
R9-290X x2 under 1000$. Nice... And than I go to see some AMD video clip and than GTX780Ti and some teen, some alien or who know what do you know how react on GTX780Ti and when he finally figure NVIDIA is stronger for 5%. His reaction is DIE AMD, DIEEEEEEEEE, BURN IN HELLL,  and something more... Because such people NVIDIA will sell us what they want and we will never get healthy market. 
I would love one day somewhere in far future all normal people who payed Titan for gaming say something to similar people who wish AMD to gone probably.. Do you know why, because AMD customer can say MY SUPPORTED COMPANY GIVE ME OPTION TO UNLOCK 350E CARD AND BECAME BETTER THAN SOME 1000$ TITAN. But if you love this, never mind. NVIDIA play game How far can we go until people start figured out what happen. 
That would be nice... compare R9-290X x2 vs Titan for same price... But Titan is premium, he have 6GB Memory, xexexexe... R9-290X only 4GB. That's nothing compared with powerfull Titan, best locked graphic card ever made. They must to slow down him because in full power he is danger for humans.
I knew they will unlocked R9-290... That's something what NVIDIA owe to all people who payed GTX780 and Titan. 
And in healthy market with normal customers, with clear thinking they will get mass protest of their hardware until they do that. 
Or they organize step-up and clean own mass and mistakes. 
NEVER HEALTHY MARKET UNTIL CUSTOMERS TEACH NVIDIA SOMETHING.
If someone who payed 700$ for GTX780 want to sell, people have right to ask less price than new R9-290. 
Because she will be stronger if they really unlocked shaders... Why greeds don't give us BIOS for unlocking shaders.
 

Don't get me wrong i would love to have a couple of titans, for other than gaming. However with this current build i could not bring myself to purchase the gtx 780 or the gtx 780ti for the simple reason that the cost to performance is too high for what i consider to be a nominal increase in their performance without overclocking the gpu. With that said, i looked over that thread and there was a person whom was unable to flash their card into an r9 290x. I have a couple of r9 290's on order and i will try to flash one of these and keep you updated. i wish EVGA made cards for the red team. In my opinion EVGA is one of the best if not the best card manufacturer out there.

BIG MICHO
here is an update to the original post. over at the OCN they have made an if anyone is interested. i believe it also has detailed info on how to do this with links to the bios that you would require.

If you unlock damaged cores, what happens? Are you able to reverse it, or is the card bricked? In other words, if your card happens to have damaged cores which were locked for a reason, what happens if you try to unlock them?

I would never bought card to do that. I only say how some customers have better options.
I didn't bought HD6950 with 100e less when 90% of people successful unlock that and when models who support are known.
And than I decide to pay 100e more for fastest AMD single even if I could pay 100e more than 6970 for 6950CF.
I used on one single fastest, only I didn't know NVIDIA amputate our 580 legs with laser to slow us down.
I thought they only brake them with baseball bat and we can fix with some...BIOS, firmware.
Special people who have good cooling and no risk of overheating...

Hmm... Now I have the urge to go out and buy either xfx or powercolor 290's...

saving my money in hope that R9-290 drops to 300-350 range in black Friday, and if that can unlock to 290X, I will be one happy camper

here is another guy on the tech forums that has done the same. his was an xfx R9 290 . i got my cards in and played on them a bit eralier with no problems. not sure if I'll have time tomorrow but definitely by wed I'll be trying to flash them into the R9 290X's

Well it unlocked. so far i've only tried one of my cards about to do the second. but here is a little info on the card
XFX R9 290
model: R9-290A-EN
part no: R9-290A-ENFC
VER 1.1
before:

 

and after:
 

 

hope you enjoy. i'll post updates on the others if they unlocked.

Cool deal. Good to see it working for people. 

BIG MICHO
i was fortunate, and i was able to unlock three R9 290's. It was a cheap and inexpensive way. however what i found is that the gpu's do not scale well after the 3 way CFX is up. And this is why i like SLI much better.

 
That will likely be resolved in a future driver update.

Exteron
Funny thread at a forum at a company that doesn't even use AMD chipset...what's the Point?

So? Are you saying AMD users are not allowed here? I suppose it's the end of the world if a guy buys a EVGA motherboard and pairs it with a R9 290?

dwoodward

Exteron
Funny thread at a forum at a company that doesn't even use AMD chipset...what's the Point?

So? Are you saying AMD users are not allowed here? I suppose it's the end of the world if a guy buys a EVGA motherboard and pairs it with a R9 290?

couldn't have said it better.

dwoodward

Exteron
Funny thread at a forum at a company that doesn't even use AMD chipset...what's the Point?

So? Are you saying AMD users are not allowed here? I suppose it's the end of the world if a guy buys a EVGA motherboard and pairs it with a R9 290?

Exactly where are you talking about motherboards?