Quite honestly - I don't know if any temperature difference is of any significance, or not.
 
I HAVE seen folks just about go nuts from over thinking the whole thing.
 
ANY of the CPU's discussed in this thread should be fine, and run Sonar with no performance issues.  I have built literally over 50 computers in the last 18 months for people, for a variety of purposes, and I myself have 3 desktops and a couple of laptops, some with AMD chips and some with Intel chips.
 
Sonar will run on any of them.  Pair up whatever CPU your brain, heart, and budget dictate, with 8 GB or more of memory, 2 hard drives or more (and if possible the OS drive being SSD), and split things across the drives, with OS and applications on the primary drive, and sample libraries and application data and projects on one or more additional drives.  Bingo - done.
 
I am not trying to give you a hard time - people have been running Sonar on a lot less computer then you are looking at with any of the ones you are evaluating, so my suggestion is that you just go ahead and run the numbers and go with whatever at that level works - while meeting the goals of decent speed, decent memory, and decent storage.
 
Good luck with it - I truly believe you will be fine with any number of choices.
 
Bob Bone
 

This is the skinny...
 
Either go for the most powerful processor ever and spend shed loads of cash.
 
Or get the best value CPU for the buck. You will know which is the best value cpu because there will be a proportional difference in price as it gets faster (up the ladder), and then bingo the processor will suddenly get very expensive. So buy the one before that.
 
Or... Just buy what you can afford.

robert_e_bone
...
I HAVE seen folks just about go nuts from over thinking the whole thing.
...

 
HA, that's me all over, with everything. It's a wonder I can actually pick what to pack for lunch for the following day xD
I just know from experience that the mental burden would be even worse if I didn't thoroughly investigate all of my options, and just made an impulse decision... or so my OCD would have me believe
 
I did finally make a decision though. The price of the 3.0 Ghz came down a couple more bucks, so I went ahead and jumped on it while I still could (good thing too, as it's no longer available at that price). I figured this way, at least I wouldn't be eternally haunted by thoughts of "what if" about that extra little 6%, not to mention that this was the best Intel chip compatible with my series mobo, and seeing as the two options I was looking at were right there near the top, I might as well make the extra push for the very peak. One more (perhaps silly) thing that made the scales tip for this choice was just a quick glance at my system specs in the Computer Properties window, imagining one or the other of these two processors listed there, and wanting not only to see a higher number than my current setup (already 2.8 GHz), but also just a nice, solid, clean whole number - 3.0.
 
What?... Did someone say something about over thinking things? I haven't the foggiest what you're referring to
 
Seriously though, much thanks to everyone for helping me make this decision. Cheers!

I have an i7-4770K @ 3.5 and even my largest projects barely tickle the performance meters in X3. I've got some around 64 audio tracks with Waves SSL channels on every track. Disk performance is an entirely different matter, on the big ones I have to bump the latency a bit so the disk can keep up.
 

I think you made a great choice, dimelives1.
 
I hope it eases your mind, that you got the best you can afford.
 
I certainly would go for the best performance I can get/afford, even if it's just an extra 6% increase. You may run into a project where that 6% makes the difference.