$70 - I have a hexacore Xeon X5650 I bought for 70 bucks on ebay. Overclocked at 4.2 GHZ.
$70 - Noctua Cooler NH-D14
$300 - 500GB SSD

$300 - Sabertooth X58
$330 - 970 GTX
$80 - 8gb RAM
$80 - Case
$50 - 520W PSU
$100 - Mechanical Keyboard
$50 - Mouse

Total $1430

With two upgrades in the past 6 years. I origanally had an i7 920, for $232, and a 460 GTX that was like 300. I resold them for about $200 dollars.
So last 5 years has cost me about $1800 bucks on PC.

Not going to count my monitor that is 27 inch 2560 x 1440 because I use all my game systems (PS3, WII-U) with it too.

It can play pretty much every game at 60 FPS at that resolution. Though some settings aren't quite maxed (Typically I turn MSAA to off or 2x. Since it doesn't increase the image quality that much more at my resolution, and use SMAA instead).

Yeah, no way that set up could run higher tier titles at 4k/60fps/Ultra. You can't even hit that performance rate in Crysis 3 with with 2xGTX 980's :p I remember someone mentioning you could do do it with a 3 way SLI though.

To be fair, games like Crysis and AC are less coded and more spat in a text editor.

Yeah, It's a 1500$ build. It could've been cheaper if I cut down on somethings, but I love the thing! If I had to pick one complaint with it, it's the fact that it runs Windows 8.1 which isn't bad by all means but it isn't as good as it could be...

There is another thing to consider though.

Resolution, FPS and "ultra" settings aren't the only variables. Certain settings like special effects, post processing and AA do not all scale the same.

You can turn a lot of that shit down and still have a lot better visual quality than on any consoles while gaining a significant boost in perfomance. The ultra settings often include stuff that isn't even noticeable in the visuals but will still half your performance compared against high settings.

Which means that just because a GPU can't run a game at the highest settings on a stable 60fps doesn't mean that it can't deliver better-than-console-graphics at 60fps.

That's really a silly question.  Most games have a few "Overkill" settings there for those who have Uber rigs or for those who play the game a few years from now.  They really aren't neccessary to get 95% of the graphics quality most of the time.

I will just say this:  To play modern games in 1080p at 60 FPS with High-Ultra settings an $800 or $1000 rig would be fine. 

nothing can play ACU properly... 

I gotta say one of my pet peaves is including accessories in the PC price.  If you want a PC AND a keyboard, they should be considered two separate purchaces.  Also don't let an exorbadent Keyboard and mouse take away from your PC's potential.

P.S.  Get an R9 290 over a 970.  It is the same performance for 20% less...

One thing that makes this topic difficult is the fact that even sufficient PCs sometimes fail to reach that level of performance because of poor optimization. For example, compare the work of Ubisoft to a component self respecting developer.

So just because a game doesn't reach a certain level or performance doesn't really give a solid indication of what a PC is capable of.

To be fair, in context of this thread and discussion how shitty a PC game was optimized is irrelevant.

It's about for what price can you expect what game to perform how well.

If your question is "what runs this game better", saying "but it performs other games well" is not really an argument.

Shitty PC ports are as much as a disadvantage for PCs as the cost is. it's something to reckon with when trying to decide between PC and console.