iTunes 10 CPU Usage During Sync

Hi Guys,

I've recently just attempted to sync my iPod Touch 4G to iTunes 10 on my mac. This has resulted in an unusual amount of CPU activity and temps reaching 85-90 Deg C.

I haven't experienced this previously and it seems to be since updating to the latest iTunes, heres the details:-

OS: Mac OS X 10.6.8 (10K540)
iTunes: 10.3.1
Mac:
MBP 13" (Mid 2009)
2.23 C2D / 4GB DDR3 / 500GB HDD / 9400M GPU.

iPod details:-
Model: Touch 4G
Capacity: 32GB
Software: iOS 4.3.3

Currently it's trying to sync around 230 newly imported songs and around 1000 newly imported photo's.

The CPU time shows on activity monitor as averaging 177% CPU / 300 MB mem at the upper end and then rapidly jumping down to 120% CPU / 220MB mem for around 1/2 a second.

The CPU time is fine when using iTunes to play media and even at the starting stage of the backup process & transferring purchased when connecting the iPod there are no problems.

Sync Stage 4 of 5 is the part where it syncs music - despite this being USB2, it's rather slow too. Currently at 77/214 & total CPU time now at 30 minutes.

Currently also running is transmission downloading at around 2.7MB/s, safari running idle with no flash - primarily text based only site, activity monitor and profiler.

I'm unable to find anything by using search on the forums, despite searching itunes I recieved a plethora of unrelated results.

Found limited other information on the web too.

Attempts to resolve:
Mac reboot - No Fix
iTunes sync stop / sync start - No Fix
Reinstall iTunes 10.3.1 from standalone - No Fix

Has anyone else experienced this problem or have any suggestions on improving things?

Cheers,
Jamie