There's hardly any special skills or knowledge needed. Upgrading only took me a few short minutes, the longest part of the process was plugging/unplugging all my connected devices. The main differences between the two are the PCIe power port positions and the lack of the annoying PCIe bar hanger latch. You can install a 10x0 series into a 2008 Mac Pro as well, but this guide specifically focuses on the 2010-2012 Mac Pros. It's lasted me well over three years and made the jump to a 2010 Mac Pro, but I finally pulled the trigger on a 1060. I included a fair amount of benchmarks to boot. Years ago, I posted a guide on how to install a GeForce 760 or 770 into a 2008 Mac Pro. For posterity, I've left the upgrade guide below largely intact with a few minor edits to help reflect more current information. My GPU section of the Definitive Mac Pro Upgrade Guide contains more info on this spat, as well as current information. I highly recommend AMD video cards over NVidia as this seems unlikely to change. NVidia states that it is actively being blocked from releasing drivers for its GeForce cards for 10.14.x+. Sadly, Apple and NVidia relations have seemed to have come to a head. Updated 04/03/19: When I wrote this guide, NVidia drivers were still being released for the current version of macOS, 10.12-10.13.
