I haven't had any experience with the orange'n'black beast, so I'm treading lightly with the recommendations. I've used most of the other boards in the Gigabyte range and they are relatively trouble free and tolerant when it comes to IC manufacturer, but the same can be said for the P67/Z68 range, and yet the high-end Z68X-UD7 is a basket case - I was told after the last RMA that the board had been discontinued...so, the "one size fits all" analogy might not be applicable to all Gigabyte boards' component compatibility.