GPT-4.1 vs DeepSeek V3.1

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

GPT-4.1 is clearly ahead on the aggregate, 43 to 35. 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 29.7. The single biggest benchmark swing on the page is MMLU, 90.2 to 33. DeepSeek V3.1 does hit back in mathematics, so the answer changes if that is the part of the workload you care about most.

GPT-4.1 gives you the larger context window at 1M, compared with 128K for DeepSeek V3.1.

Quick Verdict

Pick GPT-4.1 if you want the stronger benchmark profile. DeepSeek V3.1 only becomes the better choice if mathematics is the priority.

Knowledge

GPT-4.1

GPT-4.1

78.3

DeepSeek V3.1

29.7

90.2
MMLU
33
66.3
GPQA
32
-
SuperGPQA
30
-
OpenBookQA
28
-
MMLU-Pro
53
-
HLE
2

Coding

GPT-4.1

GPT-4.1

54.6

DeepSeek V3.1

17.7

54.6
SWE-bench Verified
13
-
HumanEval
25
-
LiveCodeBench
15

Mathematics

DeepSeek V3.1

GPT-4.1

26.4

DeepSeek V3.1

35.4

26.4
AIME 2024
35
-
AIME 2023
33
-
AIME 2025
34
-
HMMT Feb 2023
29
-
HMMT Feb 2024
31
-
HMMT Feb 2025
30
-
BRUMO 2025
32
-
MATH-500
59

Reasoning

DeepSeek V3.1
-
SimpleQA
31
-
MuSR
29
-
BBH
61

Instruction Following

GPT-4.1

GPT-4.1

87.4

DeepSeek V3.1

67

87.4
IFEval
67

Multilingual

DeepSeek V3.1
-
MGSM
64

Frequently Asked Questions

Which is better, GPT-4.1 or DeepSeek V3.1?

GPT-4.1 is ahead overall, 43 to 35. The biggest single separator in this matchup is MMLU, where the scores are 90.2 and 33.

Which is better for knowledge tasks, GPT-4.1 or DeepSeek V3.1?

GPT-4.1 has the edge for knowledge tasks in this comparison, averaging 78.3 versus 29.7. Inside this category, MMLU is the benchmark that creates the most daylight between them.

Which is better for coding, GPT-4.1 or DeepSeek V3.1?

GPT-4.1 has the edge for coding in this comparison, averaging 54.6 versus 17.7. Inside this category, SWE-bench Verified is the benchmark that creates the most daylight between them.

Which is better for math, GPT-4.1 or DeepSeek V3.1?

DeepSeek V3.1 has the edge for math in this comparison, averaging 35.4 versus 26.4. Inside this category, AIME 2024 is the benchmark that creates the most daylight between them.

Which is better for instruction following, GPT-4.1 or DeepSeek V3.1?

GPT-4.1 has the edge for instruction following in this comparison, averaging 87.4 versus 67. Inside this category, IFEval is the benchmark that creates the most daylight between them.

Last updated: March 9, 2026

Weekly LLM Benchmark Digest

Get notified when new models drop, benchmark scores change, or the leaderboard shifts. One email per week.

Free. No spam. Unsubscribe anytime. We only store derived location metadata for consent routing.