Side-by-side benchmark comparison across agentic, coding, multimodal, knowledge, reasoning, and math workflows.
GPT-5.2 finishes one point ahead overall, 88 to 87. That is enough to call, but not enough to treat as a blowout. This matchup comes down to a few meaningful edges rather than one model dominating the board.
GPT-5.2's sharpest advantage is in coding, where it averages 81.8 against 78.7. The single biggest benchmark swing on the page is Terminal-Bench 2.0, 90 to 86. GPT-5.3 Instant does hit back in instruction following, so the answer changes if that is the part of the workload you care about most.
GPT-5.3 Instant is also the more expensive model on tokens at $1.75 input / $14.00 output per 1M tokens, versus $2.00 input / $8.00 output per 1M tokens for GPT-5.2. GPT-5.2 gives you the larger context window at 400K, compared with 128K for GPT-5.3 Instant.
Pick GPT-5.2 if you want the stronger benchmark profile. GPT-5.3 Instant only becomes the better choice if instruction following is the priority.
GPT-5.2
85.4
GPT-5.3 Instant
82.9
GPT-5.2
81.8
GPT-5.3 Instant
78.7
GPT-5.2
95
GPT-5.3 Instant
95
GPT-5.2
93.2
GPT-5.3 Instant
94.2
GPT-5.2
79.5
GPT-5.3 Instant
80.8
GPT-5.2
94
GPT-5.3 Instant
96
GPT-5.2
92.4
GPT-5.3 Instant
93.4
GPT-5.2
97.2
GPT-5.3 Instant
97.2
GPT-5.2 is ahead overall, 88 to 87. The biggest single separator in this matchup is Terminal-Bench 2.0, where the scores are 90 and 86.
GPT-5.3 Instant has the edge for knowledge tasks in this comparison, averaging 80.8 versus 79.5. Inside this category, HLE is the benchmark that creates the most daylight between them.
GPT-5.2 has the edge for coding in this comparison, averaging 81.8 versus 78.7. Inside this category, SWE-bench Verified is the benchmark that creates the most daylight between them.
GPT-5.2 and GPT-5.3 Instant are effectively tied for math here, both landing at 97.2 on average.
GPT-5.3 Instant has the edge for reasoning in this comparison, averaging 94.2 versus 93.2. Inside this category, SimpleQA is the benchmark that creates the most daylight between them.
GPT-5.2 has the edge for agentic tasks in this comparison, averaging 85.4 versus 82.9. Inside this category, Terminal-Bench 2.0 is the benchmark that creates the most daylight between them.
GPT-5.2 and GPT-5.3 Instant are effectively tied for multimodal and grounded tasks here, both landing at 95 on average.
GPT-5.3 Instant has the edge for instruction following in this comparison, averaging 96 versus 94. Inside this category, IFEval is the benchmark that creates the most daylight between them.
GPT-5.3 Instant has the edge for multilingual tasks in this comparison, averaging 93.4 versus 92.4. Inside this category, MGSM is the benchmark that creates the most daylight between them.
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