VRAM is completely overrated. People jizz their pants when they see 1GB +of VRAM. It's not all about VRAM, it's about the speeds and the core of the graphics card. Once you run out of VRAM, it will put the least used textures to your RAM and then delete them from the VRAM. Which allows for more space on the VRAM and when that texture is needed, it copies it back. This all happens at like nanosecond speeds of course.
Also, I would listen to Sirrus, large budget or not, you sound like you know nothing of the computer industry. I've pretty much considered anything with the words "Extreme", "Gaming","LOLFTWGRAPHXCARD" to be over-priced and not worth the extra cash. Like you've said, you are gaming. Not folding, not benchmarking 24/7, not creating new universes. Just gaming. You would actually be fine with an i5 even. I'm not an AMD/ATI user so I don't know that much about the them. But, it is your parents money, and if they wish to spoil you with unnecessary computer parts, then go right ahead and buy the 980X.
Me personally, I'll just stick with my 9800GT, Q6600, and 4GB of ram, this machine has run everything I have put on it with very little problems. Crysis ran on high with no AA at an average of 36 FPS(Benchmark tested).
Also, another point. GPU's are what games use most. Most of the load is on your GPU, not your CPU. So if you were to take my Q6600 here and put it with one of those fancy 480s. You would run perfectly fine.
Anyway, enjoy your PC, don't download research, and don't talk to take candy from strangers.