What would be a decent gaming card for about $100-150?

OK, lets keep this short and simple. im looking for a gaming graphics card for about 100-150 dollars. any recommendations?

maybe something to run crysis. ( NOT on like max settings just enough to play it.)
and CoD4. im CURRENTLY running on a HD3650 just to get me by. (i get low FPS in CoD4. like 15-25 )

HD4850, Definitely

You didn't mention how slow your cpu is, but I suspect youd benefit more from a cpu upgrade, especially since you don't care about running max settings, just getting high fps.

thanks. i totally forgot about that FPS chart.

You should not look at that Tomshardware chart. It's just plain bad. Look at how 8800gts sli far outperforming 4870 cf, or single gtx260 far outperforming 9800gx2. I don't know how they get results like that, but it's BS.

Here's a real benchmark chart:
http://www.techpowerup.com/reviews [...] X2/26.html

Synthetic Benchmarks mean nothing. That card does not even have that great a factory overclock, and the stock cooler is about as good as that one...

My cousin's 8800 GTS 512 when I just tested one scored higher than that set at 810/2180 with the fan at 72%, which is not very audible. That card is overpriced, but I am not a fan of factory OC'd cards to begin with, its easy enough to do it yourself. That said you got a great card, just not the best for your money. I do recommend booting up Rivatuner or ATI Tools and doing some overclocking though.

The stock cooling for the 8800 GTS 512/ 9800 GTX is a cooler made by Zalman. The cooler on the "dark knight" edition is the Arctic Cooling (or a very similar knock off) heatsink which when used with the fan kit cools almost exactly as well as the stock Zalman cooler. You realize that it is very easy to remove dust, it is called compressed air.