My friends 'AGP ATI8500 64mb retail' (not the LE one) just died on him
- (mine however is still going strong, with that glue-on-zalman HSF replacment)

He's happy with the games hes used to playing on his 8500 and wants to know what to replace it with to get same kinda FPS.

Whats the modern equal?

If he doesn't want to change mobo etc or anoything else and stick with AGP, try an X1600 Pro

A used 9700 PRO for $40 from ebay would quadruple his FPS in some games.

If he wants something new, an X1300 or 6600 should be very cheap, and also quadruple his fps from the 8500...

cheers. Ill let him know

What is he willing to spend?

I'm in the same boat as this guy's friend. I use a Radeon 9000 64MB and I'm looking for a replacement (<$175 USD) that supports DX9. One problem is that the motherboard I use (ABIT ST6) limits me to AGP 4x. That's not an issue if I want to use an AGP 4/8x card, right?

By the way, does anyone know where I could find an Socket 370 CPU? I'm not attached to this system, but I don't want to upgrade for at least another six months.

There's virtually no difference between 4x and 8x

Yep, you can use any AGP 8x card on an AGP 4x mobo