Side-by-side benchmark comparison across knowledge, coding, math, and reasoning.
GPT-4.1 is clearly ahead on the aggregate, 43 to 37. The gap is large enough that you do not need to squint at the spreadsheet to see the difference.
GPT-4.1's sharpest advantage is in knowledge, where it averages 78.3 against 31.7. The single biggest benchmark swing on the page is MMLU, 90.2 to 34. DeepSeek V3.1 (Reasoning) does hit back in mathematics, so the answer changes if that is the part of the workload you care about most.
DeepSeek V3.1 (Reasoning) is the reasoning model in the pair, while GPT-4.1 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. GPT-4.1 gives you the larger context window at 1M, compared with 128K for DeepSeek V3.1 (Reasoning).
Pick GPT-4.1 if you want the stronger benchmark profile. DeepSeek V3.1 (Reasoning) only becomes the better choice if mathematics is the priority or you want the stronger reasoning-first profile.
GPT-4.1
78.3
DeepSeek V3.1 (Reasoning)
31.7
GPT-4.1
54.6
DeepSeek V3.1 (Reasoning)
18.7
GPT-4.1
26.4
DeepSeek V3.1 (Reasoning)
36.6
GPT-4.1
87.4
DeepSeek V3.1 (Reasoning)
70
GPT-4.1 is ahead overall, 43 to 37. The biggest single separator in this matchup is MMLU, where the scores are 90.2 and 34.
GPT-4.1 has the edge for knowledge tasks in this comparison, averaging 78.3 versus 31.7. Inside this category, MMLU is the benchmark that creates the most daylight between them.
GPT-4.1 has the edge for coding in this comparison, averaging 54.6 versus 18.7. Inside this category, SWE-bench Verified is the benchmark that creates the most daylight between them.
DeepSeek V3.1 (Reasoning) has the edge for math in this comparison, averaging 36.6 versus 26.4. Inside this category, AIME 2024 is the benchmark that creates the most daylight between them.
GPT-4.1 has the edge for instruction following in this comparison, averaging 87.4 versus 70. Inside this category, IFEval is the benchmark that creates the most daylight between them.
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