The MSI Z77A-G41 uses the Intel LGA 1155/Socket H2 CPU socket. Any compatible Intel CPU will have the same socket entry. It uses the DDR3 memory type, with maximum speeds of up to 2400 MHz, and 4 DDR3 slots allowing for a maximum total of 32 GB RAM. 

Conforming to the ATX standard, the MSI Z77A-G41 should fit into the majority of cases. ATX is the most common form factor, and as such has a high degree of compatibility with other components while providing a decent number of slots to widen your expansion options. 

The MSI Z77A-G41 has 2 SATA 3.0 hard drive slots. These allow for theoretical data transfer speeds of up to 6GB/s, as opposed to the 3GB/s of SATA 2.0. Generally speaking, only high performance hard drives, specifically solid-state drives, will be able to take advantage of the bandwidth potential of SATA 3.0 ports, though it is backwards compatible, so you do not have to take advantage. This motherboard also has 4 SATA 2.0 slots, so numerous SATA hard drives can be connected if desired. 

The MSI Z77A-G41 does not support onboard graphics. Any system build that uses this motherboard therefore requires a separate graphics card, or a processor that has a GPU on the same die, such as AMD APU processors. There are 1 PCIe x16 slots on this motherboard. This means it is perfectly capable of accommodating the latest graphics cards, although it is important to try and use a graphics card with the same graphics card interface of PCIe v3.0, as anything below will not reach the motherboard's potential, and anything above will have its performance slashed to the bandwidth maximum of the MSI Z77A-G41's PCIe v3.0. The MSI Z77A-G41 supports up to 2 Nvidia SLI connected graphics cards or up to 2 AMD Crossfire connected graphics cards for improved overall graphical performance at the cost of multiplied graphics-based power consumption as well as the price of the cards themselves. 

The MSI Z77A-G41 has 6 USB 2.0 slots and 3 USB 3.0 slots. USB 3.0 slots are theoretically capable of data transfer speeds of up to 5 Gbit/s, which is over 10 times faster than the USB 2.0 top speed of 480 Mbit/s. Although USB 2.0 slots alone currently serve as well as ever, an upgrade would better future-proof your system as more USB 3.0 compatible peripherals emerge. USB 3.0 is also backwards compatible with USB 2.0, which means you do not even have to use the newer slot functionality if you do not wish to.