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 38. 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 coding, where it averages 75.5 against 17.2. The single biggest benchmark swing on the page is LiveCodeBench, 74 to 14.
GPT-5.2 Instant is the reasoning model in the pair, while Nova Pro 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. Nova Pro only becomes the better choice if you would rather avoid the extra latency and token burn of a reasoning model.
GPT-5.2 Instant
79.6
Nova Pro
33.3
GPT-5.2 Instant
75.5
Nova Pro
17.2
GPT-5.2 Instant
93.1
Nova Pro
41.1
GPT-5.2 Instant
90.9
Nova Pro
46.3
GPT-5.2 Instant
79.8
Nova Pro
34.2
GPT-5.2 Instant
95
Nova Pro
66
GPT-5.2 Instant
94.4
Nova Pro
60.4
GPT-5.2 Instant
97.2
Nova Pro
48.6
GPT-5.2 Instant is ahead overall, 85 to 38. The biggest single separator in this matchup is LiveCodeBench, where the scores are 74 and 14.
GPT-5.2 Instant has the edge for knowledge tasks in this comparison, averaging 79.8 versus 34.2. Inside this category, MMLU 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 17.2. Inside this category, LiveCodeBench 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 48.6. Inside this category, AIME 2023 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 46.3. Inside this category, SimpleQA 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 33.3. 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 41.1. 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 66. 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 60.4. Inside this category, MGSM is the benchmark that creates the most daylight between them.
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