Kingpin is a dumb purchase.
How much more mhz can you seriously get out of it? 100mhz? makes no difference compared to the money it costs.
Yes and no.
1. For someone considering spending $1K on a reference Titan X with its inadequate cooler, and then spending $100 to get an AIO CLC from EVGA, getting a faster 980Ti that can overclock like a champion for $850-900 in the KINGPIN card is a better option.
2. Relative to other after-market 980Ti cards though, the KINGPIN is probably overpriced. Is it going to be worth the $ over MSI Lightning, Asus Matrix, Galax HOF or EVGA's own Classified series? Probably not. However, if that card is out months before these other ones, then some early adopters won't want to wait and will grab the KINGPIN.
However, I would rather buy a KINGPIN 980Ti if I had to choose between a $1K Titan X reference.
As far as anyone who got the 980 nonTI KINGPIN, ya they should have known what they were getting themselves into. Everyone basically knew that the Titan X and 980TI would crush any 980 card and based on the rumours of Fiji cards launching around Computex (we knew this 6 months ago too), it was easy to guesstimate that NV would unleash Titan X and 980Ti also around Spring/early summer 2015.