Side-by-side benchmark comparison across knowledge, coding, math, and reasoning.
GPT-5 mini is clearly ahead on the aggregate, 74 to 23. The gap is large enough that you do not need to squint at the spreadsheet to see the difference.
GPT-5 mini's sharpest advantage is in mathematics, where it averages 88.5 against 9.8. The single biggest benchmark swing on the page is AIME 2024, 92 to 9.8. GPT-4.1 nano does hit back in instruction following, so the answer changes if that is the part of the workload you care about most.
GPT-5 mini is the reasoning model in the pair, while GPT-4.1 nano 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 nano gives you the larger context window at 1M, compared with 128K for GPT-5 mini.
Pick GPT-5 mini if you want the stronger benchmark profile. GPT-4.1 nano only becomes the better choice if instruction following is the priority or you need the larger 1M context window.
GPT-5 mini
71.5
GPT-4.1 nano
65.2
GPT-5 mini
88.5
GPT-4.1 nano
9.8
GPT-5 mini
82
GPT-4.1 nano
83.2
GPT-5 mini is ahead overall, 74 to 23. The biggest single separator in this matchup is AIME 2024, where the scores are 92 and 9.8.
GPT-5 mini has the edge for knowledge tasks in this comparison, averaging 71.5 versus 65.2. Inside this category, GPQA is the benchmark that creates the most daylight between them.
GPT-5 mini has the edge for math in this comparison, averaging 88.5 versus 9.8. Inside this category, AIME 2024 is the benchmark that creates the most daylight between them.
GPT-4.1 nano has the edge for instruction following in this comparison, averaging 83.2 versus 82. Inside this category, IFEval is the benchmark that creates the most daylight between them.
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