GPT-5.2 Instant vs Claude 3 Opus

Side-by-side benchmark comparison across agentic, coding, multimodal, knowledge, reasoning, and math workflows.

GPT-5.2 Instant is clearly ahead on the aggregate, 85 to 51. The gap is large enough that you do not need to squint at the spreadsheet to see the difference.

GPT-5.2 Instant's sharpest advantage is in coding, where it averages 75.5 against 19. The single biggest benchmark swing on the page is SWE-bench Verified, 75 to 10.

GPT-5.2 Instant is the reasoning model in the pair, while Claude 3 Opus is not. That usually helps on harder chain-of-thought-heavy tests, but it can also mean more latency and more token spend in real use. Claude 3 Opus gives you the larger context window at 200K, compared with 128K for GPT-5.2 Instant.

Quick Verdict

Pick GPT-5.2 Instant if you want the stronger benchmark profile. Claude 3 Opus only becomes the better choice if you need the larger 200K context window or you would rather avoid the extra latency and token burn of a reasoning model.

Agentic

GPT-5.2 Instant

GPT-5.2 Instant

79.6

Claude 3 Opus

48.1

83
Terminal-Bench 2.0
44
82
BrowseComp
56
74
OSWorld-Verified
47

Coding

GPT-5.2 Instant

GPT-5.2 Instant

75.5

Claude 3 Opus

19

87
HumanEval
53
75
SWE-bench Verified
10
74
LiveCodeBench
20
77
SWE-bench Pro
20

Multimodal & Grounded

GPT-5.2 Instant

GPT-5.2 Instant

93.1

Claude 3 Opus

70.3

94
MMMU-Pro
73
92
OfficeQA Pro
67

Reasoning

GPT-5.2 Instant

GPT-5.2 Instant

90.9

Claude 3 Opus

61.6

95
SimpleQA
59
93
MuSR
57
96
BBH
74
89
LongBench v2
62
84
MRCRv2
63

Knowledge

GPT-5.2 Instant

GPT-5.2 Instant

79.8

Claude 3 Opus

45

98
MMLU
61
97
GPQA
61
95
SuperGPQA
59
93
OpenBookQA
57
88
MMLU-Pro
62
43
HLE
1
91
FrontierScience
56

Instruction Following

GPT-5.2 Instant

GPT-5.2 Instant

95

Claude 3 Opus

77

95
IFEval
77

Multilingual

GPT-5.2 Instant

GPT-5.2 Instant

94.4

Claude 3 Opus

69.8

95
MGSM
73
94
MMLU-ProX
68

Mathematics

GPT-5.2 Instant

GPT-5.2 Instant

97.2

Claude 3 Opus

65.9

99
AIME 2023
61
99
AIME 2024
63
98
AIME 2025
62
95
HMMT Feb 2023
57
97
HMMT Feb 2024
59
96
HMMT Feb 2025
58
96
BRUMO 2025
60
98
MATH-500
73

Frequently Asked Questions

Which is better, GPT-5.2 Instant or Claude 3 Opus?

GPT-5.2 Instant is ahead overall, 85 to 51. The biggest single separator in this matchup is SWE-bench Verified, where the scores are 75 and 10.

Which is better for knowledge tasks, GPT-5.2 Instant or Claude 3 Opus?

GPT-5.2 Instant has the edge for knowledge tasks in this comparison, averaging 79.8 versus 45. Inside this category, HLE is the benchmark that creates the most daylight between them.

Which is better for coding, GPT-5.2 Instant or Claude 3 Opus?

GPT-5.2 Instant has the edge for coding in this comparison, averaging 75.5 versus 19. Inside this category, SWE-bench Verified is the benchmark that creates the most daylight between them.

Which is better for math, GPT-5.2 Instant or Claude 3 Opus?

GPT-5.2 Instant has the edge for math in this comparison, averaging 97.2 versus 65.9. Inside this category, AIME 2023 is the benchmark that creates the most daylight between them.

Which is better for reasoning, GPT-5.2 Instant or Claude 3 Opus?

GPT-5.2 Instant has the edge for reasoning in this comparison, averaging 90.9 versus 61.6. Inside this category, SimpleQA is the benchmark that creates the most daylight between them.

Which is better for agentic tasks, GPT-5.2 Instant or Claude 3 Opus?

GPT-5.2 Instant has the edge for agentic tasks in this comparison, averaging 79.6 versus 48.1. Inside this category, Terminal-Bench 2.0 is the benchmark that creates the most daylight between them.

Which is better for multimodal and grounded tasks, GPT-5.2 Instant or Claude 3 Opus?

GPT-5.2 Instant has the edge for multimodal and grounded tasks in this comparison, averaging 93.1 versus 70.3. Inside this category, OfficeQA Pro is the benchmark that creates the most daylight between them.

Which is better for instruction following, GPT-5.2 Instant or Claude 3 Opus?

GPT-5.2 Instant has the edge for instruction following in this comparison, averaging 95 versus 77. Inside this category, IFEval is the benchmark that creates the most daylight between them.

Which is better for multilingual tasks, GPT-5.2 Instant or Claude 3 Opus?

GPT-5.2 Instant has the edge for multilingual tasks in this comparison, averaging 94.4 versus 69.8. Inside this category, MMLU-ProX is the benchmark that creates the most daylight between them.

Last updated: March 12, 2026

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