hiya Im looking for some insight as to the most compatible waveform editor for use with x3 that is both easy to use and not a resource hog. much appreciated. 

Compatibility is not an issue. Any wave editor that accepts a wave file as a command line argument can be launched inside SONAR. If I did not have SoundForge 10, I would probably use Wavosaur or Waveshop. But I rarely use an external editor. SONAR is adequate for most of my editing needs.

What scook said.

Sound Forge works fine.

Audacity is free and works great.

Soundforge is great, it's what I use most of the time.
 
However, I also use Edison, which is a VST wave-based editor by ImageLine (folks that make FL studio).
It allows you to record the output of a track and directly slice and manipulate it, which is useful for re-sampling and creating drum loops.  It seems to work fine for me in Sonar without any issues, but I know some folks have reported issues in other DAWs.

I understand the value of a separate editor as I've used Sound Forge or Wavelab in the past but the lines between them and most DAW's are a bit blurred now.
 
Unless there's a particular effect/function that isn't available in native sonar or via a VST it makes sense to me to use the something like Sonar for its non-destructive editing

Thanks for the great suggestions! I have samplitude 6 and sound forge 8 i think the problem comes in with my x3 being 64 bit and both programs being 32 bit, so neither of them open in my 64 bit environment. I also have just switched from protools back to sonar (i had cakewalk) and needed to redraw a wave file and couldn't find a way to do that within x3 and in that search i was led to believe that specific kind of editing could not be done in sonar. Is this true for you guys as well?

If the program runs stand alone, it will work in SONAR. It does not matter if the editor is 32bit and SONAR is 64bit. The most common mistake when using the instructions for adding an editor is setting the Type to "Wave Editor" instead of "WaveEditor" (the correct entry has no space between Wave and Editor).
 
I do not believe Samplitude is a wave editor. Generally DAWs do no take a wave file as a command line argument. The ability to accept a wave file as a command line argument is a requirement for integrating the software into SONAR as a WaveEditor type.

Thanks for all the help guys! Finally working now, it apparently didnt like the Sound Forge in the menu text it preferred Audio studio.