The Super Micro Computer X10SAT uses the Intel LGA 1150 CPU socket. Any compatible Intel CPU will have the same socket entry. It uses the DDR3 memory type, with maximum speeds of up to 1600 MHz, and 4 DDR3 slots allowing for a maximum total of 32 GB RAM.

Conforming to the ATX standard, the Super Micro Computer X10SAT 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 Super Micro Computer X10SAT has 8 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.

The Super Micro Computer X10SAT 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 0 PCIe x16 slots on this motherboard. This means a graphics cards will have to be placed in a smaller PCIe slot, which will significantly and detrimentally affect its performance potential, limiting it to the bandwidth of that particular slot. In addition, the graphics card interface revision should be as close as possible to the motherboard's PCIe v3.0 graphics card interface in order to maximize the potential of both the motherboard and the graphics card. The Super Micro Computer X10SAT does not support multiple graphics cards via Nvidia SLI or AMD Crossfire.

The Super Micro Computer X10SAT has 6 USB 2.0 slots and 8 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.