For perspective the 7800 XT is at least priced like a 6700 XT it nominally and technically (if not in name) replaces.
6700 XT was $480 MSRP, 7800 XT is $500 MSRP and the 7800 XT is about 45% - 50% faster. So it is a reasonable improvement when taken in that perspective. The problem for AMD is they very stupidly gave it the wrong name, so people compare to the 6800 XT and think "meh". They quite literally painted themselves into a corner... again.
AMD have specifically said on numerous occasion now that they are gaming focussed. They have also stated that they are not going in gung ho. What I mean is, they could have probably released a card on this tech that competed with the 4090 on raster. They chose not to, and they chose to make chiplets to make the cards cheaper to produce. Which is fine. No one "needs" all of that stuff for gaming. GCN and Vega and so on were all tank core cards that were crap for gaming. So basically? they have done what Nvidia did when they went from Fermi to Kepler. This is good. Remember, Nvidia sold us cards they were going to use for AI and so on but came up with RT and told us it was for gaming. Yet, even they, this round, in gaming cards, held back a big chunk. Anything below the 4080 is so cut back that they are basically over priced junk. Like I pointed out before, Nvidia now have their avenue away from gaming. It has taken them over 20 years to finally find another use for GPUs.
Going forward? there are a lot of rumours that next round you won't even see a high end XTX card or a XT card sat directly below it. In fact, I have heard that they are going to be only around 50% of what is possible in order to make gaming cards, and make them more affordable. £1700 GPUs ! said no one ever. It is ridiculous, and it always was.
That may go a long way to explain why the 7800XT is the 7800XT and they did not release a 7800 and a 7800XT. If they had named this a 7700XT or a 7800 at the same price? people could not be able to complain about the naming. TBH? the naming is pointless. The card costs £479 with Starfield. So like you said, even if this card was a 7700XT at the same performance? it would still be a good card. I guess people demand they name them lower, because they expect them to sell them even cheaper huh? How come no one is moaning about the 4090 naming? for years and years they did not even use 90. That only started on Ampere. Why is no one here saying the 4090 should be the 4080 and so on?
OK so there was one other thing I wanted to point out. Not relevant to the above, but for now very sound advice.
DO NOT buy a 6800XT in place of a 7800XT. Completely ignore what Gamers Nexus are saying. I have not even seen a 6800XT at the same price, but even if it were? I would not buy that in place of this. I *think* I said this in another thread, but as Linus noticed and pointed out there is an area of the 7800XT (and I think 7700XT die though I would need to check) that are for acceleration. That the 6800 cards do not have, nor the 6950XT. This next bit? is my opinion for now, as no one knows. This part of the core could well be for the upcoming version of AMD's frame gen, AND, it may mean the 7800XT craps on the 6800XT in that feature. As such? I would either wait to see (though I suspect by the time they finally release it it will be too late as the 6800XT and 6950XT will all be sold, they must be coming close as they have released these) or, buy the 7800XT.
AMD have stated that their frame gen will run on all cards, and people have deduced it will go back to the 5700 and stop there. Mostly because Polaris drivers are being stopped, and that means the CCC will not have the feature. However, what we don't know is if it will be much worse on older cards. If these accelerator units are for it? then it will be, and it could be a case of when Nvidia let you run RT on a 1080ti (the Star Wars demo) just to show you how crap it is without the tensor cores.
So for now? beware. And certainly don't listen to hairy jesus, as you could well shoot yourself in the foot by doing so.