will i run it?

[unmerged(21857)]

Depends on your budget and if you play any other games or do other stuff which is more demanding than CK2. For just CK2 (and games with similar requirements) I would personally go for Intel i3 based system which gives good performance for reasonable price and an option to upgrade in future if needed (assuming you pick a decent motherboard which supports the newer Ivy Bridge CPUs).

For a tight budget Intel's Pentium G840/850 are solid choices if you are planning to use discrete graphics card (if you pick a suitable motherboard it also allows you to upgrade to a newer and more powerful CPU later on). If you want to rely on integrated GPU then AMD's APU's are better choice even though in CPU intensive tasks they are generally weaker than Intel's CPUs and you won't have as an easy time to upgrade CPU.

Prebuilt computers are usually cheaper but they also use cheaper components when possible, eg. PSU or motherboard which both make it more difficult to upgrade in future or cause other problems (especially with a poor quality PSU).

Thanks for the advice....Budget isn't too much of a concern. I'm willing to spend 1,000 to 1,500 canadian. I just want to be able to play CK 2 and EU 4 on full settings and on full speed without a lot of lag or slow down. On my current rig EU III DW and Victoria 2 run very choppy....if I set the game to full speed the game is nothing but lag.

 

[jdrou]

On a desktop system I wouldn't get an integrated GPU for EU3-engine games, even an AMD one. The ability to get a good graphics card at reasonable cost is one of the major advantages of a desktop over a laptop and Paradox games work the GPU hard.