Certainly not. Don't focus on "Ultra" settings, that is always a dumb thing to do in PC gaming. Let developers put in that sweet future tech that no current card can run properly.
Agreed, people are too obsessed with having max settings. Turning one setting down from Ultra to very high can make a HUGE difference but a lot of people don't seem to care.
So true.
Newer games often become more computationally demanding to run as the developers push for more complexity and visual fidelity.
The pursuit for 60fps max settings for a set number of years is a tough one. Computational demands and requirements vary between different games and developers and they constantly grow.
A GTX 970 could easily last another 2 or more years at graphical settings that are notch or two below the highest at 1080p and stay close to a 60 fps target.
You could even have a custom mix of settings which push for the most noticeable boosts in visual fidelity while still maintaining a 60 fps target.
This could be something like 4 very high settings, two high, and maybe one medium thrown in.
You would need a lot of headroom to cope with the fluctuations in computational demands in order to keep that max settings 60 fps target, unless you don't mind letting the minimum dip into the 50s or something. Even then, one setting could lift your minimum into the 60s.
If you're running an SLI or Crossfire setup then it can be achieved pretty easily, at 1440p and above they really begin to stretch their legs.
Crossfire and SLI scaling is often at 80% and over, so if you get one of the fastest GPUs at the time and run two of those then you're potentially looking at GPU power that's in a league of it's own until the next generation of high-end GPUs.
An example of this would be the R9 295X2 and the Titan X.
The R9 295X2 is faster than the Titan X, and the Titan X or even the 980 Ti in SLI is faster than the GTX 1080.
The downside of this is that you'll be relying on SLI and CF support and profiles.