difference between Bus Speed and Processor Speed? noob.....

Hi! You basically have it correct. The bus speed is how fast the data travels through the motherboard pipeline while the processor speed is the speed of the "brain" of the computer. Data comes into the brain via the data bus, it's processed by the brain and then goes back out through the pipeline to the hard drives, the screen etc. That's a real basic idea. Tom

The processor speed is how often the CPU itself executes an instruction, as opposed to receiving data from elsewhere in the computer.

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Well, actually it's not how fast the data travels as much as it's how fast something is processed or the frequency of processing known as clock cycles. The data travels as fast as electricity can move which is close to the speed of light.

You obviously understand what the bus is: a bus is a subsystem that transfers data between computer components inside a computer or between computers. For a diagram see Front Side Bus. The bus speed is then the clock rate established by the computer's internal hardware clock (not the one that shows you the time of day.) The higher the clock rate the more data can be transferred per unit of time.

The CPU's clock rate is tied to the bus clock usually by a multiplier circuit. So, for example, if the bus clock speed is 800 MHz and the CPU multiplier is 3x, then the CPU's clock rate will be 2.4 GHz. The CPU's clock functions much like the bus clock in that it determines how much data the CPU can process per unit of time.

Yes, but without a context it's sort of meaningless. How many processors? What is RAM expandable to? Is the motherboard failing? Can you buy a better motherboard? What is the processor? Can you even buy a motherboard?

I doubt that would be easy to do since Apple pretty much controls the source for new Mac Pro motherboards. Furthermore, the expense would probably not justify it. You'd probably be better off selling yours and buying a new one. But then that's up to you.

I have no idea. I don't even know if Apple provides that information outside of their service centers.