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 52. 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 reasoning, where it averages 90.9 against 49.4. The single biggest benchmark swing on the page is LongBench v2, 89 to 49.
GPT-5.2 Instant is also the more expensive model on tokens at $1.50 input / $6.00 output per 1M tokens, versus $0.15 input / $0.60 output per 1M tokens for GPT-4o mini. That is roughly 10.0x on output cost alone. GPT-5.2 Instant is the reasoning model in the pair, while GPT-4o mini 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.
Pick GPT-5.2 Instant if you want the stronger benchmark profile. GPT-4o mini only becomes the better choice if you want the cheaper token bill or you would rather avoid the extra latency and token burn of a reasoning model.
GPT-5.2 Instant
79.6
GPT-4o mini
50.9
GPT-5.2 Instant
75.5
GPT-4o mini
65
GPT-5.2 Instant
93.1
GPT-4o mini
60.2
GPT-5.2 Instant
90.9
GPT-4o mini
49.4
GPT-5.2 Instant
79.8
GPT-4o mini
62
Comparable scores for this category are coming soon. One or both models do not have sourced results here yet.
GPT-5.2 Instant
94.4
GPT-4o mini
74.7
Comparable scores for this category are coming soon. One or both models do not have sourced results here yet.
GPT-5.2 Instant is ahead overall, 85 to 52. The biggest single separator in this matchup is LongBench v2, where the scores are 89 and 49.
GPT-5.2 Instant has the edge for knowledge tasks in this comparison, averaging 79.8 versus 62. Inside this category, FrontierScience 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 65. Inside this category, SWE-bench Pro 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 49.4. 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 50.9. Inside this category, BrowseComp 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 60.2. Inside this category, OfficeQA Pro 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 74.7. Inside this category, MMLU-ProX is the benchmark that creates the most daylight between them.
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