GeForce GT 120 in Mac Pro (Early 2008)

I feel like I already know the answer to this, but I've seen all sorts of Apple documentation to the contrary, so I'm a little sketched out and wanting assurance, but does the NVIDIA GeForce GT 120 that was the stock part of the Mac Pro (Early 2009/4,1) work just fine in the Mac Pro (Early 2008/3,1)? I'm considering recommending such a card for a friend with an Early 2008/3,1 Mac Pro who is stuck with the Radeon HD 2600 XT. And I feel like even though the GT 120 is also a weaksauce card, it's not failure-prone and it is at least a little better (with double the VRAM of the former and OpenCL support). But I don't want to propose that I can be assured that it won't break either the card or the Mac Pro.

Tony5787 said:

Yeah it should work in there just fine. I think that Apple just started to state that the ATI Radeon 5770 and 5870 weren't compatible with the 3,1 Mac Pro (they are though). Why not just get a new Nvidia card though? It probably won't cost much more and it should work just fine as long as he has Mountain Lion and the newest Nvidia Drivers installed. Even the 5770 or 4870 would be a better choice. To me the GT 120 isn't worth upgrading to (and that's coming from someone using a 3,1 Mac Pro with a 2600XT at the moment).

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The main reason for my friend considering the GT 120 is that she has easy access to one for dirt cheap, if not free. Otherwise, I wouldn't have her spending money on that one; I'd likely point her towards a 5770 or a 4870 as you're saying here. Though really, I'm trying to see if she can just escape the 2600XT somehow. It's a capable system and it's running Mountain Lion wonderfully; I feel like something with OpenCL and more than 256GB of VRAM will sate her just fine until her options widen and/or become cheaper with the release of ACTUALLY updated Mac Pros.