Claude 4.1 Opus Thinking vs GPT-5 nano

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

Claude 4.1 Opus Thinking is clearly ahead on the aggregate, 39 to 31. The gap is large enough that you do not need to squint at the spreadsheet to see the difference.

GPT-5 nano gives you the larger context window at 400K, compared with 200K for Claude 4.1 Opus Thinking.

Quick Verdict

Pick Claude 4.1 Opus Thinking if you want the stronger benchmark profile. GPT-5 nano only becomes the better choice if mathematics is the priority or you need the larger 400K context window.

Knowledge

GPT-5 nano

Claude 4.1 Opus Thinking

34

GPT-5 nano

71.2

38
MMLU
-
37
GPQA
71.2
35
SuperGPQA
-
33
OpenBookQA
-
53
MMLU-Pro
-
8
HLE
-

Coding

Claude 4.1 Opus Thinking
30
HumanEval
-
20
SWE-bench Verified
-
15
LiveCodeBench
-

Mathematics

GPT-5 nano

Claude 4.1 Opus Thinking

40.1

GPT-5 nano

85.2

38
AIME 2023
-
40
AIME 2024
-
39
AIME 2025
85.2
34
HMMT Feb 2023
-
36
HMMT Feb 2024
-
35
HMMT Feb 2025
-
37
BRUMO 2025
-
62
MATH-500
-

Reasoning

Claude 4.1 Opus Thinking
36
SimpleQA
-
34
MuSR
-
67
BBH
-

Instruction Following

Claude 4.1 Opus Thinking
66
IFEval
-

Multilingual

Claude 4.1 Opus Thinking
60
MGSM
-

Frequently Asked Questions

Which is better, Claude 4.1 Opus Thinking or GPT-5 nano?

Claude 4.1 Opus Thinking is ahead overall, 39 to 31. The biggest single separator in this matchup is AIME 2025, where the scores are 39 and 85.2.

Which is better for knowledge tasks, Claude 4.1 Opus Thinking or GPT-5 nano?

GPT-5 nano has the edge for knowledge tasks in this comparison, averaging 71.2 versus 34. Inside this category, GPQA is the benchmark that creates the most daylight between them.

Which is better for math, Claude 4.1 Opus Thinking or GPT-5 nano?

GPT-5 nano has the edge for math in this comparison, averaging 85.2 versus 40.1. Inside this category, AIME 2025 is the benchmark that creates the most daylight between them.

Last updated: March 9, 2026

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