Nova Pro vs GPT-4.1 mini

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

Nova Pro is clearly ahead on the aggregate, 40 to 35. The gap is large enough that you do not need to squint at the spreadsheet to see the difference.

Nova Pro's sharpest advantage is in mathematics, where it averages 42.4 against 23.1. The single biggest benchmark swing on the page is MMLU, 41 to 87.5. GPT-4.1 mini does hit back in knowledge, so the answer changes if that is the part of the workload you care about most.

GPT-4.1 mini gives you the larger context window at 1M, compared with 128K for Nova Pro.

Quick Verdict

Pick Nova Pro if you want the stronger benchmark profile. GPT-4.1 mini only becomes the better choice if knowledge is the priority or you need the larger 1M context window.

Knowledge

GPT-4.1 mini

Nova Pro

35.3

GPT-4.1 mini

75.9

41
MMLU
87.5
40
GPQA
64.2
38
SuperGPQA
-
36
OpenBookQA
-
53
MMLU-Pro
-
4
HLE
-

Coding

GPT-4.1 mini

Nova Pro

22

GPT-4.1 mini

23.6

33
HumanEval
-
19
SWE-bench Verified
23.6
14
LiveCodeBench
-

Mathematics

Nova Pro

Nova Pro

42.4

GPT-4.1 mini

23.1

41
AIME 2023
-
43
AIME 2024
23.1
42
AIME 2025
-
37
HMMT Feb 2023
-
39
HMMT Feb 2024
-
38
HMMT Feb 2025
-
40
BRUMO 2025
-
59
MATH-500
-

Reasoning

Nova Pro
39
SimpleQA
-
37
MuSR
-
63
BBH
-

Instruction Following

GPT-4.1 mini

Nova Pro

66

GPT-4.1 mini

88.5

66
IFEval
88.5

Multilingual

Nova Pro
61
MGSM
-

Frequently Asked Questions

Which is better, Nova Pro or GPT-4.1 mini?

Nova Pro is ahead overall, 40 to 35. The biggest single separator in this matchup is MMLU, where the scores are 41 and 87.5.

Which is better for knowledge tasks, Nova Pro or GPT-4.1 mini?

GPT-4.1 mini has the edge for knowledge tasks in this comparison, averaging 75.9 versus 35.3. Inside this category, MMLU is the benchmark that creates the most daylight between them.

Which is better for coding, Nova Pro or GPT-4.1 mini?

GPT-4.1 mini has the edge for coding in this comparison, averaging 23.6 versus 22. Inside this category, SWE-bench Verified is the benchmark that creates the most daylight between them.

Which is better for math, Nova Pro or GPT-4.1 mini?

Nova Pro has the edge for math in this comparison, averaging 42.4 versus 23.1. Inside this category, AIME 2024 is the benchmark that creates the most daylight between them.

Which is better for instruction following, Nova Pro or GPT-4.1 mini?

GPT-4.1 mini has the edge for instruction following in this comparison, averaging 88.5 versus 66. Inside this category, IFEval is the benchmark that creates the most daylight between them.

Last updated: March 9, 2026

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