GPT-5.2 Instant vs Claude 4.1 Opus Thinking

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 44. 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 21.8. The single biggest benchmark swing on the page is AIME 2023, 99 to 38.

Claude 4.1 Opus Thinking 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 4.1 Opus Thinking only becomes the better choice if you need the larger 200K context window.

Agentic

GPT-5.2 Instant

GPT-5.2 Instant

79.6

Claude 4.1 Opus Thinking

46.7

83
Terminal-Bench 2.0
45
82
BrowseComp
49
74
OSWorld-Verified
47

Coding

GPT-5.2 Instant

GPT-5.2 Instant

75.5

Claude 4.1 Opus Thinking

21.8

87
HumanEval
30
75
SWE-bench Verified
20
74
LiveCodeBench
15
77
SWE-bench Pro
29

Multimodal & Grounded

GPT-5.2 Instant

GPT-5.2 Instant

93.1

Claude 4.1 Opus Thinking

59.3

94
MMMU-Pro
62
92
OfficeQA Pro
56

Reasoning

GPT-5.2 Instant

GPT-5.2 Instant

90.9

Claude 4.1 Opus Thinking

49.4

95
SimpleQA
36
93
MuSR
34
96
BBH
67
89
LongBench v2
60
84
MRCRv2
60

Knowledge

GPT-5.2 Instant

GPT-5.2 Instant

79.8

Claude 4.1 Opus Thinking

34.3

98
MMLU
38
97
GPQA
37
95
SuperGPQA
35
93
OpenBookQA
33
88
MMLU-Pro
53
43
HLE
8
91
FrontierScience
41

Instruction Following

GPT-5.2 Instant

GPT-5.2 Instant

95

Claude 4.1 Opus Thinking

66

95
IFEval
66

Multilingual

GPT-5.2 Instant

GPT-5.2 Instant

94.4

Claude 4.1 Opus Thinking

58.7

95
MGSM
60
94
MMLU-ProX
58

Mathematics

GPT-5.2 Instant

GPT-5.2 Instant

97.2

Claude 4.1 Opus Thinking

48.3

99
AIME 2023
38
99
AIME 2024
40
98
AIME 2025
39
95
HMMT Feb 2023
34
97
HMMT Feb 2024
36
96
HMMT Feb 2025
35
96
BRUMO 2025
37
98
MATH-500
62

Frequently Asked Questions

Which is better, GPT-5.2 Instant or Claude 4.1 Opus Thinking?

GPT-5.2 Instant is ahead overall, 85 to 44. The biggest single separator in this matchup is AIME 2023, where the scores are 99 and 38.

Which is better for knowledge tasks, GPT-5.2 Instant or Claude 4.1 Opus Thinking?

GPT-5.2 Instant has the edge for knowledge tasks in this comparison, averaging 79.8 versus 34.3. Inside this category, MMLU is the benchmark that creates the most daylight between them.

Which is better for coding, GPT-5.2 Instant or Claude 4.1 Opus Thinking?

GPT-5.2 Instant has the edge for coding in this comparison, averaging 75.5 versus 21.8. Inside this category, LiveCodeBench is the benchmark that creates the most daylight between them.

Which is better for math, GPT-5.2 Instant or Claude 4.1 Opus Thinking?

GPT-5.2 Instant has the edge for math in this comparison, averaging 97.2 versus 48.3. 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 4.1 Opus Thinking?

GPT-5.2 Instant has the edge for reasoning in this comparison, averaging 90.9 versus 49.4. 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 4.1 Opus Thinking?

GPT-5.2 Instant has the edge for agentic tasks in this comparison, averaging 79.6 versus 46.7. 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 4.1 Opus Thinking?

GPT-5.2 Instant has the edge for multimodal and grounded tasks in this comparison, averaging 93.1 versus 59.3. 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 4.1 Opus Thinking?

GPT-5.2 Instant has the edge for instruction following in this comparison, averaging 95 versus 66. 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 4.1 Opus Thinking?

GPT-5.2 Instant has the edge for multilingual tasks in this comparison, averaging 94.4 versus 58.7. Inside this category, MMLU-ProX is the benchmark that creates the most daylight between them.

Last updated: March 12, 2026

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