But efficiency has regressed in it's relative competitive position.
I think a big crux of the Vega letdown was endless hype creating expectations of a comeback for Vega, a shrinking of the gap between AMD and NVidia, and finding out that gap has instead grown larger.
If you look at it from any metric, and compare the relative position of:
Fury X vs 980/980Ti
To
Vega RX vs 1080/1080Ti
The gap has worsened in every metric. 2 years later, after endless hype from AMD, everything is in a worse relative position than it was for Fury X. Performance is relatively worse, die size is relatively worse, Power usage is relatively worse, time to market is worse, every metric is worse across the board.
Everything is relatively worse than it was for the Fury X launch, which in itself was no great leap.
In some ways I think it would have been better if AMD never mentioned/delivered Vega as a gaming card. I think if it hadn't been for mining propping up prices, it might not have feasible to deliver it against a $400 1080/$300 1070.