Side-by-side benchmark comparison across agentic, coding, multimodal, knowledge, reasoning, and math workflows.
GPT-5.2 Instant is clearly ahead on the aggregate, 85 to 65. The gap is large enough that you do not need to squint at the spreadsheet to see the difference.
GPT-5.2 Instant's sharpest advantage is in mathematics, where it averages 97.2 against 26.4. The single biggest benchmark swing on the page is AIME 2024, 99 to 26.4.
GPT-4.1 is also the more expensive model on tokens at $2.00 input / $8.00 output per 1M tokens, versus $1.50 input / $6.00 output per 1M tokens for GPT-5.2 Instant. GPT-5.2 Instant 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 GPT-5.2 Instant.
Pick GPT-5.2 Instant if you want the stronger benchmark profile. GPT-4.1 only becomes the better choice if you need the larger 1M context window or you would rather avoid the extra latency and token burn of a reasoning model.
GPT-5.2 Instant
79.6
GPT-4.1
64.7
GPT-5.2 Instant
75.5
GPT-4.1
51.7
GPT-5.2 Instant
93.1
GPT-4.1
73.6
GPT-5.2 Instant
90.9
GPT-4.1
80.9
GPT-5.2 Instant
79.8
GPT-4.1
63.3
GPT-5.2 Instant
95
GPT-4.1
87.4
GPT-5.2 Instant
94.4
GPT-4.1
69
GPT-5.2 Instant
97.2
GPT-4.1
26.4
GPT-5.2 Instant is ahead overall, 85 to 65. The biggest single separator in this matchup is AIME 2024, where the scores are 99 and 26.4.
GPT-5.2 Instant has the edge for knowledge tasks in this comparison, averaging 79.8 versus 63.3. Inside this category, GPQA is the benchmark that creates the most daylight between them.
GPT-5.2 Instant has the edge for coding in this comparison, averaging 75.5 versus 51.7. Inside this category, SWE-bench Pro is the benchmark that creates the most daylight between them.
GPT-5.2 Instant has the edge for math in this comparison, averaging 97.2 versus 26.4. Inside this category, AIME 2024 is the benchmark that creates the most daylight between them.
GPT-5.2 Instant has the edge for reasoning in this comparison, averaging 90.9 versus 80.9. Inside this category, LongBench v2 is the benchmark that creates the most daylight between them.
GPT-5.2 Instant has the edge for agentic tasks in this comparison, averaging 79.6 versus 64.7. Inside this category, Terminal-Bench 2.0 is the benchmark that creates the most daylight between them.
GPT-5.2 Instant has the edge for multimodal and grounded tasks in this comparison, averaging 93.1 versus 73.6. Inside this category, MMMU-Pro is the benchmark that creates the most daylight between them.
GPT-5.2 Instant has the edge for instruction following in this comparison, averaging 95 versus 87.4. Inside this category, IFEval is the benchmark that creates the most daylight between them.
GPT-5.2 Instant has the edge for multilingual tasks in this comparison, averaging 94.4 versus 69. Inside this category, MMLU-ProX is the benchmark that creates the most daylight between them.
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