Seed 1.6 vs GPT-5 nano

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

Seed 1.6 is clearly ahead on the aggregate, 65 to 45. The gap is large enough that you do not need to squint at the spreadsheet to see the difference.

Seed 1.6's sharpest advantage is in multilingual, where it averages 83.4 against 48. The single biggest benchmark swing on the page is MMLU-ProX, 81 to 48. GPT-5 nano does hit back in mathematics, so the answer changes if that is the part of the workload you care about most.

Seed 1.6 is also the more expensive model on tokens at $0.25 input / $2.00 output per 1M tokens, versus $0.05 input / $0.40 output per 1M tokens for GPT-5 nano. That is roughly 5.0x on output cost alone. GPT-5 nano gives you the larger context window at 400K, compared with 256K for Seed 1.6.

Quick Verdict

Pick Seed 1.6 if you want the stronger benchmark profile. GPT-5 nano only becomes the better choice if mathematics is the priority or you want the cheaper token bill.

Agentic

Seed 1.6

Seed 1.6

62.3

GPT-5 nano

37.7

63
Terminal-Bench 2.0
38
67
BrowseComp
48
58
OSWorld-Verified
30

Coding

Seed 1.6

Seed 1.6

42.4

GPT-5 nano

22

64
HumanEval
Coming soon
46
SWE-bench Verified
Coming soon
38
LiveCodeBench
Coming soon
46
SWE-bench Pro
22

Multimodal & Grounded

Seed 1.6

Seed 1.6

79.6

GPT-5 nano

56.7

80
MMMU-Pro
58
79
OfficeQA Pro
55

Reasoning

Seed 1.6

Seed 1.6

74.5

GPT-5 nano

58.8

69
SimpleQA
Coming soon
69
MuSR
Coming soon
86
BBH
Coming soon
77
LongBench v2
57
78
MRCRv2
61

Knowledge

GPT-5 nano

Seed 1.6

56.4

GPT-5 nano

63.7

73
MMLU
Coming soon
72
GPQA
71.2
70
SuperGPQA
Coming soon
68
OpenBookQA
Coming soon
75
MMLU-Pro
Coming soon
11
HLE
Coming soon
68
FrontierScience
58

Instruction Following

Coming soon

Comparable scores for this category are coming soon. One or both models do not have sourced results here yet.

87
IFEval
Coming soon

Multilingual

Seed 1.6

Seed 1.6

83.4

GPT-5 nano

48

88
MGSM
Coming soon
81
MMLU-ProX
48

Mathematics

GPT-5 nano

Seed 1.6

75.9

GPT-5 nano

85.2

72
AIME 2023
Coming soon
74
AIME 2024
Coming soon
73
AIME 2025
85.2
68
HMMT Feb 2023
Coming soon
70
HMMT Feb 2024
Coming soon
69
HMMT Feb 2025
Coming soon
71
BRUMO 2025
Coming soon
82
MATH-500
Coming soon

Frequently Asked Questions

Which is better, Seed 1.6 or GPT-5 nano?

Seed 1.6 is ahead overall, 65 to 45. The biggest single separator in this matchup is MMLU-ProX, where the scores are 81 and 48.

Which is better for knowledge tasks, Seed 1.6 or GPT-5 nano?

GPT-5 nano has the edge for knowledge tasks in this comparison, averaging 63.7 versus 56.4. Inside this category, FrontierScience is the benchmark that creates the most daylight between them.

Which is better for coding, Seed 1.6 or GPT-5 nano?

Seed 1.6 has the edge for coding in this comparison, averaging 42.4 versus 22. Inside this category, SWE-bench Pro is the benchmark that creates the most daylight between them.

Which is better for math, Seed 1.6 or GPT-5 nano?

GPT-5 nano has the edge for math in this comparison, averaging 85.2 versus 75.9. Inside this category, AIME 2025 is the benchmark that creates the most daylight between them.

Which is better for reasoning, Seed 1.6 or GPT-5 nano?

Seed 1.6 has the edge for reasoning in this comparison, averaging 74.5 versus 58.8. Inside this category, LongBench v2 is the benchmark that creates the most daylight between them.

Which is better for agentic tasks, Seed 1.6 or GPT-5 nano?

Seed 1.6 has the edge for agentic tasks in this comparison, averaging 62.3 versus 37.7. Inside this category, OSWorld-Verified is the benchmark that creates the most daylight between them.

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

Seed 1.6 has the edge for multimodal and grounded tasks in this comparison, averaging 79.6 versus 56.7. Inside this category, OfficeQA Pro is the benchmark that creates the most daylight between them.

Which is better for multilingual tasks, Seed 1.6 or GPT-5 nano?

Seed 1.6 has the edge for multilingual tasks in this comparison, averaging 83.4 versus 48. Inside this category, MMLU-ProX is the benchmark that creates the most daylight between them.

Last updated: March 12, 2026

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