Originally Posted by
Kraszmyl
The retina moniker denotes a high resolution display for the panel. The retina branded display in the 15 pro is 2880x1800 and the one in the 13 pro is 2560x1600 which sub divide into more normal resolutions for gaming without any of the normal associated stretch you would see if you were attempting to play something at 1366x786 on lets say a 1440x900 display. When the retina branded displays run their full resolution then yes you get shaper images and text and more area to work with for documents and pictures. All of which is variable based on your scaling which OSX does rather well and youll only get comparable scaling out of Windows 8 and 7 depending on what youre looking for.
So yes there is plenty of technology behind it and it does affect his gaming.
The little hd5100 would cry and attempt to kill itself trying to push the 4096000 pixels at the native resolution where as running wow full screen at 1440x900 instead while keeping a good ratio and pushing a more manageable 1296000 pixels will make the 5100 a playable and in theory enjoyable experience.
Edit x2 - to OP
Side note if you can afford it, get the i7 because the hd5100 will have a higher turbo clock rate.
Also if you can afford the 16 gigs of ram that will help in theory with the ssd longevity, it does in Linux and Windows systems so I would assume it does in OSX but I couldn't tell you for sure because I haven't seen anyone test it and I don't personally have a OSX machine with an ssd currently.
But the i7 is a more important upgrade for that little bit of extra boost if you're able to splurge for it or would have to pick between ram/i7.
Edit x2
Just noticed the 128g version comes with a 4g base which will force a lot of writes/reads to virtual memory on the ssd. The 256g Version with the 8 gigs of ram and the i7 are your best deal on cost to performance ratio. for 1799.
If you were going to consider the 512g one within your price range I would heavily suggest going to the base line 15inch retina instead since it has the iris pro , 8 gigs of ram, and a quad i7 for the same price and if you can tolerate the extra couple of inches a hell of a better machine.