I have noticed over the last few updates that as I build a song out, sometimes some snaps and pops enter in. This occurs when core one of my i7 processor reaches into the red. (Platinum Sonar, 64 bit).  It seemed to me to happen too soon.
 
I always attributed this to too much effects, so I found myself freezing alot. That helped sometimes more than others.
 
Well, guess what I found. And I am not claiming this is some universal fix for anyone else who has been seeing core 1 dip into the red.  What I found was that if I remove Pro Channel UNUSED moduals, that the problem went away. So I put some pack, and then did it again. Same thing. Then a third try.
 
My core one went down a good 20% if not more.  I could not friggen believe it.  Pops gone for my current project.
 
Bottom line: some unused moduals are sucking resources.  And as an oh-by-the-way... one that would cause problems on one bus might not cause problems on another. There seems to be some randomness at play here. Perhaps this is why I had not discovered this until now.
 
I *knew* it wasn't me... I've been using Sonar since X1 and I distinctly remembering having well more VST's loaded before issues occured.
 
Ok, now I am back to work on a pop free mix.
 
:-)
 
Your mileage may vary.
 

Hmm..... Interesting.

interesting - thank you for posting. For my currently project, even when loaded but not running, CPU is consuming at 20%. I think some of the plugins run even when the project is not in playback/record/bounce mode. That's essentially what you see, or at least related.

Hello.  Great suggestion: turn off unused Pro Channel modules.  Maybe Sonar should include that suggestion in their Help and Instruction files.

I stumbled over this about a week ago, and like you I've gotten great results.  Thanks for posting this.

Yes, the plugins consume CPU even if idle.
VST3 is supposed to eliminate this.
Use the VST3 version plugin if available.
 
Edited:
But for Prochannel all you can do now is disable AFAIK.