My 290 ran at 96C when mining at 820kH/s (the highest stable I could get, but then again my card seems to be a crappy one. Driver crashes alot when i stop mining and restart etc.)
Now it runs at 65C with watercooling and the same 820kH/s. If i increase intesnity the kH/s decreases. Sux...
I think there is a ton of variance in the power / heat attributes for R9 290 cards.
I have two sapphire 290's. Both hash very stable at 875Kh/s with the exact same settings, but the first runs at 73C at 60% fan while the second goes over 95C even with 75% fan, which forces me to run the fan at 90% and temps are still 88C. So
290 #1: 73C at 60% fan
290 #2: 88C at 90% fan
To make it an apples to apples comparison
290 #1: 62C at 90% fan
290 #2: 88C at 90% fan
best settings I've found for the 290's is 1000 engine, stock memclock, and having the cards automatically set fan speed to sit at about 90-93. AMD stated the cards are designed to withstand constant 95 temps, so running your fans high to keep it under 80 is just stressing the fans. It does, however, automatically down-clock based on lots of variables (one of the main ones that caused me issues was VRM temps I think)heat, voltage, and clockspeed are all changed many times per second on a hardware level in the cards, based on an arbritary 'powertune' value. Basically, set powertune as low as you can, while hitting the best clockspeed you can and the card will manage itself (for me, I have one card at power tune 4, and one at power tune 7 to make them both sit comfortably at 1000 engine)