Just throw some of the cheapest ones that might have noticeable improvements at me, then throw some mildy expensive ones at me, and them show me some at the thousand range.
What would you recommend to someone looking to get an extra kick out of games like grand theft auto and other unoptimised games (like blockland's shaders at max lol) and to not get any lag with emulated gamecube games
Thousand range are the ones that are business oriented.
Expensive: GTX 770, 780, 670-680 R9 290, 290x, 295x2 ($300-500, not counting HD or GTX 690) Titan doesnt really belong here. For the price, 780 is a hell of a lot better
Mid range ($150-300): R7 260, 265, R9 270, 270x, 280 GTX 660, 670, 560, etc
Low range: pretty much when the second number in those cards are low. I know its a broad statement, but there a lot of cheap cheaper cards. Anything below #50 with nvidia is GT not GTX
For the last part, depends on your price range. Most cards have different companies who make them, so price and sometimes performance varies.