Seed 1.6 vs DeepSeek-R1

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

Seed 1.6 is clearly ahead on the aggregate, 65 to 43. The gap is large enough that you do not need to squint at the spreadsheet to see the difference.

Seed 1.6's sharpest advantage is in multimodal & grounded, where it averages 79.6 against 47.5. The single biggest benchmark swing on the page is MMMU-Pro, 80 to 43.

DeepSeek-R1 is also the more expensive model on tokens at $0.55 input / $2.19 output per 1M tokens, versus $0.25 input / $2.00 output per 1M tokens for Seed 1.6. Seed 1.6 gives you the larger context window at 256K, compared with 128K for DeepSeek-R1.

Quick Verdict

Pick Seed 1.6 if you want the stronger benchmark profile. DeepSeek-R1 only becomes the better choice if its workflow or ecosystem matters more than the raw scoreboard.

Agentic

Seed 1.6

Seed 1.6

62.3

DeepSeek-R1

44.5

63
Terminal-Bench 2.0
42
67
BrowseComp
49
58
OSWorld-Verified
44

Coding

Seed 1.6

Seed 1.6

42.4

DeepSeek-R1

21.5

64
HumanEval
36
46
SWE-bench Verified
17
38
LiveCodeBench
19
46
SWE-bench Pro
25

Multimodal & Grounded

Seed 1.6

Seed 1.6

79.6

DeepSeek-R1

47.5

80
MMMU-Pro
43
79
OfficeQA Pro
53

Reasoning

Seed 1.6

Seed 1.6

74.5

DeepSeek-R1

50.9

69
SimpleQA
42
69
MuSR
40
86
BBH
66
77
LongBench v2
58
78
MRCRv2
57

Knowledge

Seed 1.6

Seed 1.6

56.4

DeepSeek-R1

37.9

73
MMLU
44
72
GPQA
43
70
SuperGPQA
41
68
OpenBookQA
39
75
MMLU-Pro
52
11
HLE
14
68
FrontierScience
44

Instruction Following

Seed 1.6

Seed 1.6

87

DeepSeek-R1

69

87
IFEval
69

Multilingual

Seed 1.6

Seed 1.6

83.4

DeepSeek-R1

60.4

88
MGSM
61
81
MMLU-ProX
60

Mathematics

Seed 1.6

Seed 1.6

75.9

DeepSeek-R1

52.5

72
AIME 2023
44
74
AIME 2024
46
73
AIME 2025
45
68
HMMT Feb 2023
40
70
HMMT Feb 2024
42
69
HMMT Feb 2025
41
71
BRUMO 2025
43
82
MATH-500
64

Frequently Asked Questions

Which is better, Seed 1.6 or DeepSeek-R1?

Seed 1.6 is ahead overall, 65 to 43. The biggest single separator in this matchup is MMMU-Pro, where the scores are 80 and 43.

Which is better for knowledge tasks, Seed 1.6 or DeepSeek-R1?

Seed 1.6 has the edge for knowledge tasks in this comparison, averaging 56.4 versus 37.9. Inside this category, MMLU is the benchmark that creates the most daylight between them.

Which is better for coding, Seed 1.6 or DeepSeek-R1?

Seed 1.6 has the edge for coding in this comparison, averaging 42.4 versus 21.5. Inside this category, SWE-bench Verified is the benchmark that creates the most daylight between them.

Which is better for math, Seed 1.6 or DeepSeek-R1?

Seed 1.6 has the edge for math in this comparison, averaging 75.9 versus 52.5. Inside this category, AIME 2023 is the benchmark that creates the most daylight between them.

Which is better for reasoning, Seed 1.6 or DeepSeek-R1?

Seed 1.6 has the edge for reasoning in this comparison, averaging 74.5 versus 50.9. Inside this category, MuSR is the benchmark that creates the most daylight between them.

Which is better for agentic tasks, Seed 1.6 or DeepSeek-R1?

Seed 1.6 has the edge for agentic tasks in this comparison, averaging 62.3 versus 44.5. 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, Seed 1.6 or DeepSeek-R1?

Seed 1.6 has the edge for multimodal and grounded tasks in this comparison, averaging 79.6 versus 47.5. Inside this category, MMMU-Pro is the benchmark that creates the most daylight between them.

Which is better for instruction following, Seed 1.6 or DeepSeek-R1?

Seed 1.6 has the edge for instruction following in this comparison, averaging 87 versus 69. Inside this category, IFEval is the benchmark that creates the most daylight between them.

Which is better for multilingual tasks, Seed 1.6 or DeepSeek-R1?

Seed 1.6 has the edge for multilingual tasks in this comparison, averaging 83.4 versus 60.4. Inside this category, MGSM is the benchmark that creates the most daylight between them.

Last updated: March 12, 2026

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