o4-mini (high) vs GPT-5 nano

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

o4-mini (high) is clearly ahead on the aggregate, 71 to 31. The gap is large enough that you do not need to squint at the spreadsheet to see the difference.

GPT-5 nano is the reasoning model in the pair, while o4-mini (high) 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-5 nano gives you the larger context window at 400K, compared with 200K for o4-mini (high).

Quick Verdict

Pick o4-mini (high) if you want the stronger benchmark profile. GPT-5 nano only becomes the better choice if mathematics is the priority or you need the larger 400K context window.

Knowledge

GPT-5 nano

o4-mini (high)

68.5

GPT-5 nano

71.2

82
MMLU
-
82
GPQA
71.2
80
SuperGPQA
-
78
OpenBookQA
-
76
MMLU-Pro
-
13
HLE
-

Coding

o4-mini (high)
74
HumanEval
-
45
SWE-bench Verified
-
34
LiveCodeBench
-

Mathematics

GPT-5 nano

o4-mini (high)

82.3

GPT-5 nano

85.2

83
AIME 2023
-
85
AIME 2024
-
84
AIME 2025
85.2
79
HMMT Feb 2023
-
81
HMMT Feb 2024
-
80
HMMT Feb 2025
-
82
BRUMO 2025
-
84
MATH-500
-

Reasoning

o4-mini (high)
80
SimpleQA
-
78
MuSR
-
83
BBH
-

Instruction Following

o4-mini (high)
83
IFEval
-

Multilingual

o4-mini (high)
83
MGSM
-

Frequently Asked Questions

Which is better, o4-mini (high) or GPT-5 nano?

o4-mini (high) is ahead overall, 71 to 31. The biggest single separator in this matchup is GPQA, where the scores are 82 and 71.2.

Which is better for knowledge tasks, o4-mini (high) or GPT-5 nano?

GPT-5 nano has the edge for knowledge tasks in this comparison, averaging 71.2 versus 68.5. Inside this category, GPQA is the benchmark that creates the most daylight between them.

Which is better for math, o4-mini (high) or GPT-5 nano?

GPT-5 nano has the edge for math in this comparison, averaging 85.2 versus 82.3. Inside this category, AIME 2025 is the benchmark that creates the most daylight between them.

Last updated: March 9, 2026

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