Sonar and 192 kHz sampling like what?

Don't know about whether that's appropriate (depends on complexity of track/effects/vsts) but you WILL take a huge cpu hit running at higher rates... This has nothing to do with Sonar.
 
I ran at 96 for awhile as my Forte driver latency kinda sucks  but went back to 44 as cpu hit, even with my 6 cores, was too heavy.  
 
It's why my NEXT interface will be an RME... extremely low latency at 44 without having to jump to higher sample rates.
 
You might wanna post this in the Studio Hardware section where folks talk about this stuff and the experts who build daws/track this stuff hang out.
 

im hoping your PC is of the newer kind. 192K is like driving 150 MPH in a Go Kart.
It going to be fun but something is going to give sooner or later
 

We often digitaze vinyl for customers with 192/24 and we do this with an 150$ cheap AMD computer Dual-Core 2.8 GHz. Recording one track the CPU goes to 28%. RME Fireface 800. Audio recording into a network device (NAS-Server).

You should definitely test it without any plugins first. There shouldn't be a big jump from SONAR's point of view. However plugins might internally downsample to their native sample rate which could cause a hit.

The test audio is two tracks 2:36 long, no plugins or native effects or ProChannel.
The test was recorded using a Lynx AES16e audio card @192 kHz.
There is something going on with Sonar because it has audio engine failures.

 

I know your question is why the quantum leap in increasing CPU... but just logically speaking, at some point, your OS and your DAW will start FIGHTING for resources, which then adds overhead to the CPU to manage this war, which might be causing the QUANTUM leap.
 
I am using an APOLLO  (original old silver face) and can run in 192kz/24 bit, albeit I have to turn up the latency buffers on the Apollo/SPLAT to do this.  Which isn't an issue, since I can monitor the input tracks in real time and then it doesn't matter for mixing (except I notice a lag when I push the sliders and buttons).
 
I am totally guessing on what is causing the Quantum Leap.... 
 
 
PS - I also had a similar problem a few years ago, and using the same theory, fixed my DAW by turning down the number of threads that SPLAT would use (to be one less that my CPU had) so that the OS wasn't contending for CPU cycles but I think that the bakers have put in some fix for this since then.

jimkleban
I know your question is why the quantum leap in increasing CPU... but just logically speaking, at some point, your OS and your DAW will start FIGHTING for resources, which then adds overhead to the CPU to manage this war, which might be causing the QUANTUM leap.
 
I am using an APOLLO  (original old silver face) and can run in 192kz/24 bit, albeit I have to turn up the latency buffers on the Apollo/SPLAT to do this.  Which isn't an issue, since I can monitor the input tracks in real time and then it doesn't matter for mixing (except I notice a lag when I push the sliders and buttons).
 
I am totally guessing on what is causing the Quantum Leap.... 
 
 
PS - I also had a similar problem a few years ago, and using the same theory, fixed my DAW by turning down the number of threads that SPLAT would use (to be one less that my CPU had) so that the OS wasn't contending for CPU cycles but I think that the bakers have put in some fix for this since then.

I apologize - what is SPLAT?

I ran the same hi sample rate files through Ableton Live 9 and the results were
176.4  CPU @25%
192     CPU @52%
 

SPLAT is  "Sonar Platinum"