Side-by-side benchmark comparison across agentic, coding, multimodal, knowledge, reasoning, and math workflows.
GPT-4.1 nano is clearly ahead on the aggregate, 49 to 45. The gap is large enough that you do not need to squint at the spreadsheet to see the difference.
GPT-4.1 nano's sharpest advantage is in reasoning, where it averages 74.1 against 58.8. The single biggest benchmark swing on the page is GPQA, 50.3 to 71.2. GPT-5 nano does hit back in mathematics, so the answer changes if that is the part of the workload you care about most.
GPT-5 nano 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 400K for GPT-5 nano.
Pick GPT-4.1 nano if you want the stronger benchmark profile. GPT-5 nano only becomes the better choice if mathematics is the priority or you want the stronger reasoning-first profile.
GPT-4.1 nano
47.4
GPT-5 nano
37.7
GPT-4.1 nano
18
GPT-5 nano
22
GPT-4.1 nano
59.3
GPT-5 nano
56.7
GPT-4.1 nano
74.1
GPT-5 nano
58.8
GPT-4.1 nano
50.7
GPT-5 nano
63.7
Comparable scores for this category are coming soon. One or both models do not have sourced results here yet.
GPT-4.1 nano
59
GPT-5 nano
48
GPT-4.1 nano
9.8
GPT-5 nano
85.2
GPT-4.1 nano is ahead overall, 49 to 45. The biggest single separator in this matchup is GPQA, where the scores are 50.3 and 71.2.
GPT-5 nano has the edge for knowledge tasks in this comparison, averaging 63.7 versus 50.7. Inside this category, GPQA is the benchmark that creates the most daylight between them.
GPT-5 nano has the edge for coding in this comparison, averaging 22 versus 18. Inside this category, SWE-bench Pro is the benchmark that creates the most daylight between them.
GPT-5 nano has the edge for math in this comparison, averaging 85.2 versus 9.8. GPT-4.1 nano stays close enough that the answer can still flip depending on your workload.
GPT-4.1 nano has the edge for reasoning in this comparison, averaging 74.1 versus 58.8. Inside this category, LongBench v2 is the benchmark that creates the most daylight between them.
GPT-4.1 nano has the edge for agentic tasks in this comparison, averaging 47.4 versus 37.7. Inside this category, BrowseComp is the benchmark that creates the most daylight between them.
GPT-4.1 nano has the edge for multimodal and grounded tasks in this comparison, averaging 59.3 versus 56.7. Inside this category, OfficeQA Pro is the benchmark that creates the most daylight between them.
GPT-4.1 nano has the edge for multilingual tasks in this comparison, averaging 59 versus 48. Inside this category, MMLU-ProX is the benchmark that creates the most daylight between them.
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