SONAR X2 Audio Engine Improvements

Earlier this year, I decided to use X1 in a live situation from my laptop. It was only an i5 2nd gen CPU with 8GB of RAM. During sound check, I was adding effects to the vocal strip and starting introducing latency.  Luckily I had my 32 channel board in the car and was able to swap out.  I'm a hardware guy and prefer to use hardware for live gigs, however, in a duo or trio format, I don't want to lug around a 32-channel board and a 10u rack of EQ,FX,Compressors, Crossover, etc.  I've since then built a really beefy DAW (see signature below) in an SKB 6U rack on wheels.  Since SONAR X2 has improved on their audio engine, wouldn't mind giving it another chance.  Obviously a hybrid approach (SONAR X2 with hardware FX, etc.) may be the answer. Any thoughts/comments?