General

I've been able to run Witcher 2 at max settings (sans "Ubersampling&quot in 1080p with a GTX 750Ti, which is about a quarter of the price of that 980 On an AMD-CPU system.
Honestly, the only thing that really matters with high-end games is the GPU (graphics card) and that it has ~6-8GHz of RAM. Beyond that, your computer can be 5~10 years old running a 2.5Ghz dual-core and still chug out most games. The only ones that it might not are those "cartoony" MMOs (ala WoW and WildStar), because for some reason those seem to rely more on the CPU than GPU X-x

Now if you're going up to 2k or 4k monitors you'll need a seriously buff system right now. That's what your system is made for; 1080p is generally baseline for modern systems. And an i7 is just a "look at me and my moneyyyyyy!" processor; the i5 by what I hear works just as well in general, and won't cost as much.

Definitely can get 60+ fps at 1080p max settings with a gtx 980 on all current games (with the exception of a few games that were stupidly optimized).

For some high end gaming:
If you can afford to spend a couple hundred more bucks (which by the sounds of things, it sounds like you can), I'd suggest waiting a little bit and get the gtx 980 ti instead of the 980. Then get a 4k monitor and you're set.

For 1080p gaming:
There definitely are cheaper options than a gtx 980, 16GB of ram and and i7 processor. Your set up is pretty over kill for this type of gaming.

You can't seriously be asking that question. This is almost leading up to one of those "more money than common sense" scenarios.

[quote=GreatRomantic]GPU: EVGA GeForce GTX 980 (Superclocked)
RAM: 16GB (4x4) DDR4-2666Mhz
Storage: 400GB SSD (the newest Intel 750 series)
CPU: Intel i7-5820k[/quote]

I'm telling you right now that an Intel Core i5-4690K, 4GB of DDR3 RAM, and a 120GB Samsung 850 EVO SSD gets you the exact same gaming performance.

[quote=GreatRomantic]Or are there just some games that you can't play at MAX/ULTRA with just one 980 (60+ FPS)?[/quote]

That wholly depends on what screen resolution you are playing at.

The only relevant game the GeForce GTX 980 cannot completely max at 1920x1080 with 60 FPS is the laughingstock of an Ubisoft AAA title called Assassin's Creed Unity.

I think you can play MapleStory decently but you should probably get a Xbox if you want to play games.

Not Ubisofts games.

No cause some games have been poorly optimized for pc.

sure you can do all that at 480p

source: 480p gamer since 1999