When I was building my i3v last year, one of the stepper driver boards arrived with a broken trimpot. I ordered a Pololu black and it arrived before the warranty replacement from MakerFarm, so the black got installed. I used it in the Z axis location on RAMPS for about a year and noticed no difference from the other drivers in how it needed to be configured.

What electronics suite do you have? The link you provided is for a qty of 5 drivers. Did you try more than one of the new ones?