[humanpuff69]

The only thing that a lower end gpu might be better at (compared to a higher end gpu) is cost per fps, other than that, you'll never see this happening. Either your friend might have a counterfeit videocard(The ones where they flash the card to be something that Its not, Like flashing a GTX 550 to be a 1050 Ti), or maybe his card has a thermal issue, or maybe the game you benchmarked isn't that dependent on the GPU so his cpu is bottlenecking his card.

Most gpu information tool like gpu z already have an ability to detect fake GPU . Most of the fake GPU still identified the chip / codename as the real gpu like gtx 550 . For thermal issue gpu z also have that feature you can look at the gpu temps

most of the time the price to performance is held by mid range like rx 470/570 and 1060 . gpu lower than that mostly have less price to perofrmance except for used part