Welcome to the forums Zack.
Some assumptions first:
- I assume we're looking at the the top tier of games in terms of hardware requirements (otherwise it's impossible to compare anything because games with extremely low requirements are released all the time).
- I assume that by "maxed out" we're talking about how the game looks subjectively, not whether all the knobs and switches are set to maximum because often the difference between Ultra and High for a particular setting is near-indistinguishable, while the effect on framerate can be measured.
- I assume display resolution will be 1080p, even if a higher resolution like 1440p or 4K became standard in the PC gaming community in the future
- I assume "smoothly" means 60 fps with Vsync, allowing for occasional dips below 60 fps.
With all that in mind, I'd say a current PC that meets these requirements for current most demanding games will still be able to play the future most demanding games on low settings and acceptable framerates maybe 4-5 years from now. I don't have a crystal ball; there are a lot of factors that can make it anywhere from 3 years to 6 years, including: new low overhead APIs like DirectX 12 and Mantle, trends in evolution of computer components (in particular, CPU performance which limits GPU performance), and trends in console development which (as we've seen with PS3 and X360) can impose limits on how far cross platform developers are willing to take their graphics engines.
So really the only line of argument comes from looking at the past. Currently, you could have a high end PC from 2009 (first generation overclocked i7, NVIDIA GTX 295) and it'd play any high end game smoothly on the lowest settings.
A word of warning though: if you intend to get the best value for your money and ensure decent performance over a longer period of time, don't buy excessively fast and expensive hardware. Buy the best bang for buck, and keep upgrading it incrementally along the years. This may mean that the current PC isn't fast enough for all out Ultra in the most demanding game available, but it'll be decent enough for medium-high until you need a GPU upgrade. Generally speaking, you should be able to maintain sufficient performance to play anything smoothly with the following recipe: (1) start with a $200 CPU and a $250-300 GPU, (2) upgrade GPU every 1.5-2 years, (3) along with the second GPU upgrade, also upgrade CPU, motherboard (and RAM), (4) upgrade other components and peripherals as needed and as they wear out. This way you'll be spending about $1000 on components to begin with, and about $200 per year on average afterwards.
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