Side-by-side benchmark comparison across agentic, coding, multimodal, knowledge, reasoning, and math workflows.
Claude Opus 4.6 and GPT-5.2 Instant finish on the same overall score, so this is less about a single winner and more about where the edge shows up. The headline says tie; the benchmark table is where the real choice happens.
GPT-5.2 Instant's sharpest advantage is in instruction following, where it averages 95 against 95. The single biggest benchmark swing on the page is MRCRv2, 92 to 84. Claude Opus 4.6 does hit back in reasoning, so the answer changes if that is the part of the workload you care about most.
Claude Opus 4.6 is also the more expensive model on tokens at $15.00 input / $75.00 output per 1M tokens, versus $1.50 input / $6.00 output per 1M tokens for GPT-5.2 Instant. That is roughly 12.5x on output cost alone. GPT-5.2 Instant is the reasoning model in the pair, while Claude Opus 4.6 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 Opus 4.6 gives you the larger context window at 1M, compared with 128K for GPT-5.2 Instant.
Treat this as a split decision. Claude Opus 4.6 makes more sense if reasoning is the priority or you need the larger 1M context window; GPT-5.2 Instant is the better fit if knowledge is the priority or you want the cheaper token bill.
Claude Opus 4.6
79.2
GPT-5.2 Instant
79.6
Claude Opus 4.6
75.1
GPT-5.2 Instant
75.5
Claude Opus 4.6
94.6
GPT-5.2 Instant
93.1
Claude Opus 4.6
93.1
GPT-5.2 Instant
90.9
Claude Opus 4.6
78.9
GPT-5.2 Instant
79.8
Claude Opus 4.6
95
GPT-5.2 Instant
95
Claude Opus 4.6
94.7
GPT-5.2 Instant
94.4
Claude Opus 4.6
97.2
GPT-5.2 Instant
97.2
Claude Opus 4.6 and GPT-5.2 Instant are tied on overall score, so the right pick depends on which category matters most for your use case.
GPT-5.2 Instant has the edge for knowledge tasks in this comparison, averaging 79.8 versus 78.9. Inside this category, HLE is the benchmark that creates the most daylight between them.
GPT-5.2 Instant has the edge for coding in this comparison, averaging 75.5 versus 75.1. Inside this category, SWE-bench Verified is the benchmark that creates the most daylight between them.
Claude Opus 4.6 and GPT-5.2 Instant are effectively tied for math here, both landing at 97.2 on average.
Claude Opus 4.6 has the edge for reasoning in this comparison, averaging 93.1 versus 90.9. Inside this category, MRCRv2 is the benchmark that creates the most daylight between them.
GPT-5.2 Instant has the edge for agentic tasks in this comparison, averaging 79.6 versus 79.2. Inside this category, Terminal-Bench 2.0 is the benchmark that creates the most daylight between them.
Claude Opus 4.6 has the edge for multimodal and grounded tasks in this comparison, averaging 94.6 versus 93.1. Inside this category, OfficeQA Pro is the benchmark that creates the most daylight between them.
Claude Opus 4.6 and GPT-5.2 Instant are effectively tied for instruction following here, both landing at 95 on average.
Claude Opus 4.6 has the edge for multilingual tasks in this comparison, averaging 94.7 versus 94.4. Inside this category, MGSM is the benchmark that creates the most daylight between them.
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