We are not. You are. I don't mean to be harsh but there are terms that have meaning for Sonar. Knowing the language of Sonar is important in understanding it. For communication its vital. One can't make up terms and expect others to have any idea what one is saying. Sometimes a new member will use terms they know from another DAW. Normally they will explain that. Many of us have many DAWs and know them and can "translate".
 
Reading the manual will greatly help in learning the language of Sonar. They even provide a glossary.
 
Once we are speaking the same language it will become easy to deal with any issue that may pop up. Also it helps in figuring out the philosophy behind Sonar. That in turn will expedite knowing why things are done the way they are.  
 
I welcome you to this forum and hope you see this place as I do. A massive resource full of deeply knowledgeable members willing to help a fellow user. However it helps if everyone is speaking the same language. A mild misnaming is no big deal. But things can get badly mangled if no one can understand the meaning of what is said.
 
I believe members have pretty much answered your "q". I am being a bit more exacting as to what is really meant by you because I think its important enough so that its completely clear. Otherwise all the trouble the others have gone to will have proved fruitless.  
 
 

There are also "Synth" tracks which are audio tracks that have a soft synth assigned as input (i.e. the audio half of an "Instrument" track that's been split). They get a different icon, have a Waveform Preview button in place of an Input Echo button.
 
I'd still like to have an example of an FX that uses more CPU on an audio track than on a synth/instrument track. I definitely cannot reproduce that.

This thread is badly mangled I'm afraid.   To summarize  I HAVE learned what to do..freeze AUDIO TRACKS WITH EFFECTS ON THEM to conserve cpu resources (as well as on simple instrument tracks as defined by Paul P which is correct).  As far as tracks that create wave FORMS and REAL INSTRUMENTS...we'll let those two go because they're way too ambiguous.  I didn't say wave FILE however.  Thanks for your efforts John please don't take offense. :)

Yes, that bothers me too, Brundlefly.  

eph221
This thread is badly mangled I'm afraid.   To summarize  I HAVE learned what to do..freeze AUDIO TRACKS WITH EFFECTS ON THEM to conserve cpu resources (as well as on simple instrument tracks as defined by Paul P which is correct).  As far as tracks that create wave FORMS and REAL INSTRUMENTS...we'll let those two go because they're way too ambiguous.  I didn't say wave FILE however.  Thanks for your efforts John please don't take offense. :)

No I wont take any offense because none was offered. Even so if there had been I wouldn't because you are trying. I give you credit for that. In fact I think you are a very nice new member. I hope to hear more from you. 
 
I do know Sonar is a very deep DAW.  No one can learn it overnight. You have done nothing wrong. 

I can't seem to reproduce this either eph221.  Now that you have your track types sorted,  are you certain you are not mistaking the additional overhead of the synth inserted in a simple instrument track for CPU load caused by the fx plugin? 

Bruce,  I read on another thread that someone's core 1 is maxing out.  Generally speaking that's what's happening to me.  I'll have about 8 tracks with fx  and sonar is just unusable.   My core 1 is spiking as well and I have 4 cores.  I have my buffers as large as they go on my tascam 2x2.  I did latency mon, and it appears I'm have overall issues with my firewire adapter.  Who knows.  It's going to take some sleuthing.  The original post though  of this thread is  true of old projects.  I'll see what happens when I record some new projects and let you know.  What's strange is that these are new issues for me,something I did recently is what's causing the issues.  But funny thing, the only thing I did recently was reset my computer!

eph221
Bruce,  I read on another thread that someone's core 1 is maxing out.  Generally speaking that's what's happening to me.  I'll have about 8 tracks with fx  and sonar is just unusable.   My core 1 is spiking as well and I have 4 cores.  I have my buffers as large as they go on my tascam 2x2.  I did latency mon, and it appears I'm have overall issues with my firewire adapter.  Who knows.  It's going to take some sleuthing.  The original post though  of this thread is  true of old projects.  I'll see what happens when I record some new projects and let you know.  What's strange is that these are new issues for me,something I did recently is what's causing the issues.  But funny thing, the only thing I did recently was reset my computer!

The first core spiking has been mentioned in quite a few threads,  but a different issue to your OP.  I was referring to the variation in CPU load between fx loaded onto different types of track. Always confusing when there are a few issues in a single thread!  
 
With regards the first core CPU spike,  try disabling core parking.  I am running Windows 7 and it certainly solved that issue for me - though others not so much, so your mileage may vary. 
 
https://bitsum.com/parkcontrol/

Thanks everyone, mystery solved.  I went into  my bios  on a lark and set it to *optimized defaults*.  Latency mon is now as pacific as a baby kitten.  (Well, cured but not solved!)  The core one spiking, the dpc latency issues and the fx problems on *real instrument* tracks are all taken care of now.