Aging Video Card?

I've been running a Mac Pro (late 2008) 3.2GHz for the last four years and it is a great machine.  Time for a new one, of course, but I'd like to make some adjustments to this machine for use as a back-up.
The machine powers two 30" Cinema displays and the graphics card is a NVIDIA GeForce 880 GT.  It is primiarly used for daily video and film production/editing.  Over the last eight months the machine, under heavy video editing or EyeTV use, emits a high pitched 'whine'.  When it becomes too annoying I can restart and it disappears until I return to heavy video editing or EyeTV use. 
I'm assuming the graphic card is wearing out and needs to be replaced.  I should be able to do this myself, right?  I can't really afford to be without the machine for any real length of time, i.e., several days to a week or longer and when I watch the online Mac Pro repair videos it seems pretty clear cut, disconnect any cables connected to the card and slide it out of the slot.  Replace the card, slide it back in and connect the cable.
Here's my question:  Should I replace the video card with the same card or has NVIDIA released a better more compatible card?  And if a better card is available which one would that be?

It could be the 8800GT and you probably want the ATI 5770 instead. Only ebay for 8800GTs. Sometimes you can bake 8800 but if it is the fan you could use 3rd party copper cooler w/ fan too.
The 5770 is plug and play with 10.6.5 and up.
You should of course be monitoring the temps closely and proably increase the base default fan rpm as well.
Swapping video card is 10 minutes.

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