If we look at the hardware requirements of your each activity for cpu and
memory.
*browsing the web: depends, basically you can browse the static web with very
low specs. however, if you regularly run massive scripts and video, the
demand goes way up. ditto for very large images (cpu+mem)
*reading pdfs/djvus: this will not require too much horse power, unless
somebody embeds massive graphics into those files (cpu+mem)
*typing latex: depends how you do it of course (what program you use) but can
be done on very minimal hardware
*maths software: probably runs on light hardware, however could get pretty
heavy (cpu+mem)
*programming:same deal, depends on what you do, from very light to very heavy
(cpu+mem)
This reply is pretty vague but life often is. Basically having a faster cpu
will just make things faster. However having more memory will make things
possible. Once you run out, it's game over. (sure there is swapping but
that's so many orders of magnitude slower you can forget it) On the other
hand even the smallest amount of 4GB seems a lot to a luddite like yours
truly. I don't think you need the GPU for any of this.
