If it really is 2080 performance minus the ray tracing that would be immense, I can see it being true considering Vega 64 in a fair few titles is nipping on the heels of a 1080 Ti, So AMD's next GPU Navi being just shy or on par with a 2080 which is basically on par with a 1080 Ti, Is very possible.
So the rumor mill just completely abandoned the previous rumor they held for quite some time a few months ago that Navi was a 580 replacement and now instead is going for a 2080? Quite a big difference lol