We all know that iTunes can be a bit of a resource hog when you're playing music through it while Photoshopping cats' faces onto your friends' heads and browsing for pictures. But apparently for some users, it can be even more of a problem.

If you've got the latest Mac Pros with the Nehalem-based Xeon multicore processors, you may have noticed it too. According to Ars Technica, a glitch in audio processing is reportedly driving up processor temperatures to almost double their usual while sucking hard on the CPU power. The issue in question only appears to apply to the latest Mac Pros running OS X and does not turn up in MacBook Pros.

Weirdly enough, the increases aren't triggering the fans and aren't showing up in CPU performance measures, just heat and power, while triggering corresponding sluggishness in other programs. So far, according to the article, Apple Care has soft-pedaled the issue, claiming temperature ranges are within normal, leaving many users frustrated.

Even more telling, users who have booted their Mac Pros into Windows 7 have reported the problem is eliminated. This led someone in the hackintosh community to create his own power management kernel extension that disabled SpeedStep and Turbo Boost, completely eliminating the problem.

Hopefully, the more this is reported, and the fact that a simple hack can resolve the issue leads to Apple putting out a software update relatively soon to fix the problem. Meanwhile, if you're experiencing the same issues with your Mac Pro, until you get a software update consult the headline above.