GPT-5 (high) vs Seed 1.6

Side-by-side benchmark comparison across agentic, coding, multimodal, knowledge, reasoning, and math workflows.

GPT-5 (high) is clearly ahead on the aggregate, 79 to 65. 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 coding, where it averages 66.1 against 42.4. The single biggest benchmark swing on the page is LiveCodeBench, 62 to 38.

Seed 1.6 gives you the larger context window at 256K, compared with 128K for GPT-5 (high).

Quick Verdict

Pick GPT-5 (high) if you want the stronger benchmark profile. Seed 1.6 only becomes the better choice if you need the larger 256K context window.

Agentic

GPT-5 (high)

GPT-5 (high)

75.2

Seed 1.6

62.3

78
Terminal-Bench 2.0
63
75
BrowseComp
67
72
OSWorld-Verified
58

Coding

GPT-5 (high)

GPT-5 (high)

66.1

Seed 1.6

42.4

85
HumanEval
64
67
SWE-bench Verified
46
62
LiveCodeBench
38
70
SWE-bench Pro
46

Multimodal & Grounded

GPT-5 (high)

GPT-5 (high)

89.4

Seed 1.6

79.6

93
MMMU-Pro
80
85
OfficeQA Pro
79

Reasoning

GPT-5 (high)

GPT-5 (high)

85.7

Seed 1.6

74.5

89
SimpleQA
69
87
MuSR
69
94
BBH
86
83
LongBench v2
77
80
MRCRv2
78

Knowledge

GPT-5 (high)

GPT-5 (high)

71.1

Seed 1.6

56.4

93
MMLU
73
91
GPQA
72
89
SuperGPQA
70
87
OpenBookQA
68
83
MMLU-Pro
75
27
HLE
11
83
FrontierScience
68

Instruction Following

GPT-5 (high)

GPT-5 (high)

91

Seed 1.6

87

91
IFEval
87

Multilingual

GPT-5 (high)

GPT-5 (high)

86.4

Seed 1.6

83.4

89
MGSM
88
85
MMLU-ProX
81

Mathematics

GPT-5 (high)

GPT-5 (high)

94

Seed 1.6

75.9

95
AIME 2023
72
97
AIME 2024
74
96
AIME 2025
73
91
HMMT Feb 2023
68
93
HMMT Feb 2024
70
92
HMMT Feb 2025
69
94
BRUMO 2025
71
94
MATH-500
82

Frequently Asked Questions

Which is better, GPT-5 (high) or Seed 1.6?

GPT-5 (high) is ahead overall, 79 to 65. The biggest single separator in this matchup is LiveCodeBench, where the scores are 62 and 38.

Which is better for knowledge tasks, GPT-5 (high) or Seed 1.6?

GPT-5 (high) has the edge for knowledge tasks in this comparison, averaging 71.1 versus 56.4. Inside this category, MMLU is the benchmark that creates the most daylight between them.

Which is better for coding, GPT-5 (high) or Seed 1.6?

GPT-5 (high) has the edge for coding in this comparison, averaging 66.1 versus 42.4. Inside this category, LiveCodeBench is the benchmark that creates the most daylight between them.

Which is better for math, GPT-5 (high) or Seed 1.6?

GPT-5 (high) has the edge for math in this comparison, averaging 94 versus 75.9. Inside this category, AIME 2023 is the benchmark that creates the most daylight between them.

Which is better for reasoning, GPT-5 (high) or Seed 1.6?

GPT-5 (high) has the edge for reasoning in this comparison, averaging 85.7 versus 74.5. Inside this category, SimpleQA is the benchmark that creates the most daylight between them.

Which is better for agentic tasks, GPT-5 (high) or Seed 1.6?

GPT-5 (high) has the edge for agentic tasks in this comparison, averaging 75.2 versus 62.3. Inside this category, Terminal-Bench 2.0 is the benchmark that creates the most daylight between them.

Which is better for multimodal and grounded tasks, GPT-5 (high) or Seed 1.6?

GPT-5 (high) has the edge for multimodal and grounded tasks in this comparison, averaging 89.4 versus 79.6. Inside this category, MMMU-Pro is the benchmark that creates the most daylight between them.

Which is better for instruction following, GPT-5 (high) or Seed 1.6?

GPT-5 (high) has the edge for instruction following in this comparison, averaging 91 versus 87. Inside this category, IFEval is the benchmark that creates the most daylight between them.

Which is better for multilingual tasks, GPT-5 (high) or Seed 1.6?

GPT-5 (high) has the edge for multilingual tasks in this comparison, averaging 86.4 versus 83.4. Inside this category, MMLU-ProX is the benchmark that creates the most daylight between them.

Last updated: March 12, 2026

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