Side-by-side benchmark comparison across knowledge, coding, math, and reasoning.
GPT-5 (high) is clearly ahead on the aggregate, 84 to 43. The gap is large enough that you do not need to squint at the spreadsheet to see the difference.
GPT-5 (high)'s sharpest advantage is in mathematics, where it averages 94 against 26.4. The single biggest benchmark swing on the page is AIME 2024, 97 to 26.4.
GPT-5 (high) 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 (high).
Pick GPT-5 (high) 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 (high)
78.3
GPT-4.1
78.3
GPT-5 (high)
71.3
GPT-4.1
54.6
GPT-5 (high)
94
GPT-4.1
26.4
GPT-5 (high)
91
GPT-4.1
87.4
GPT-5 (high) is ahead overall, 84 to 43. The biggest single separator in this matchup is AIME 2024, where the scores are 97 and 26.4.
GPT-5 (high) and GPT-4.1 are effectively tied for knowledge tasks here, both landing at 78.3 on average.
GPT-5 (high) has the edge for coding in this comparison, averaging 71.3 versus 54.6. Inside this category, SWE-bench Verified is the benchmark that creates the most daylight between them.
GPT-5 (high) has the edge for math in this comparison, averaging 94 versus 26.4. Inside this category, AIME 2024 is the benchmark that creates the most daylight between them.
GPT-5 (high) has the edge for instruction following in this comparison, averaging 91 versus 87.4. Inside this category, IFEval is the benchmark that creates the most daylight between them.
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