Graphics Card for Mac Pro 3,1 (Early 2008)

Hello all,
I'm finally in the market to purchase a graphics card this faithful sidekick for gaming-related reasons. But, there are a few things I'd like to know before I really get elbow-deep in researching to find the perfect one for the price.
First, I know the Mac edition GPUs have EFI. Is the sole purpose of EFI to provide the boot screen for the Mac? Surely that's not that big of a loss if I chose to purchase a non-Mac-specific GPU. Furthermore, I hope to keep my old 8800 installed as well. Would there be a way to negate the loss of the boot screen while maintaining the hardware performance for the better GPU?
Second, it can be difficult to find a comprehensive list of system requirements in some cases. What is the noticeable negative impact I should expect if I chose, say, a Sapphire 7950 ME, which (if I'm not mistaked) mentions requirements of an early/late 2009 Mac Pro? I'm not very knowledgeable of hardware compatibility ratings in general, so any information (no matter how snidely toned) is welcome.
Thank you
Bugg

At 10.8.3 Apple quietly added a whole lot more Drivers for cards not previously seen.
At the same time, cards that previously did not show a picture AT ALL on a Mac started working (except boot screens). This is said to be due to some research NVIDIA did. They figured out a way to include EFI in the Driver in Mac RAM and make it work as if it were in the card's Firmware.
Some Users who do not regularly boot back-and-forth to Windows or use diagnostic "snag keys" love their faster cards and claim not to miss Boot Screens. The only ones to complain have been those taken by surprise by the dark screen at Satrtup.
You are correct that the 7950 MacEdition says it requires a Mac Pro 4,1 2009 or better. The last time I posted that, another user piped up, "it works in my 2008" [but possibly slightly slower due to slightly slower slots].

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