Seed 1.6 Flash vs Z-1

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

Seed 1.6 Flash is clearly ahead on the aggregate, 56 to 47. The gap is large enough that you do not need to squint at the spreadsheet to see the difference.

Seed 1.6 Flash's sharpest advantage is in multimodal & grounded, where it averages 73.1 against 50.5. The single biggest benchmark swing on the page is MMMU-Pro, 74 to 46.

Seed 1.6 Flash is the reasoning model in the pair, while Z-1 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. Seed 1.6 Flash gives you the larger context window at 256K, compared with 128K for Z-1.

Quick Verdict

Pick Seed 1.6 Flash if you want the stronger benchmark profile. Z-1 only becomes the better choice if you would rather avoid the extra latency and token burn of a reasoning model.

Agentic

Seed 1.6 Flash

Seed 1.6 Flash

54.5

Z-1

42.2

52
Terminal-Bench 2.0
39
62
BrowseComp
49
52
OSWorld-Verified
41

Coding

Seed 1.6 Flash

Seed 1.6 Flash

27.6

Z-1

26.7

59
HumanEval
44
24
SWE-bench Verified
33
25
LiveCodeBench
22
31
SWE-bench Pro
30

Multimodal & Grounded

Seed 1.6 Flash

Seed 1.6 Flash

73.1

Z-1

50.5

74
MMMU-Pro
46
72
OfficeQA Pro
56

Reasoning

Seed 1.6 Flash

Seed 1.6 Flash

66.8

Z-1

54.8

61
SimpleQA
50
59
MuSR
48
75
BBH
74
70
LongBench v2
56
74
MRCRv2
57

Knowledge

Seed 1.6 Flash

Seed 1.6 Flash

47.3

Z-1

42.7

65
MMLU
52
64
GPQA
51
62
SuperGPQA
49
60
OpenBookQA
47
65
MMLU-Pro
64
3
HLE
6
57
FrontierScience
51

Instruction Following

Seed 1.6 Flash

Seed 1.6 Flash

81

Z-1

80

81
IFEval
80

Multilingual

Seed 1.6 Flash

Seed 1.6 Flash

72.8

Z-1

72.7

76
MGSM
74
71
MMLU-ProX
72

Mathematics

Seed 1.6 Flash

Seed 1.6 Flash

67.1

Z-1

60.9

64
AIME 2023
52
66
AIME 2024
54
65
AIME 2025
53
60
HMMT Feb 2023
48
62
HMMT Feb 2024
50
61
HMMT Feb 2025
49
63
BRUMO 2025
51
72
MATH-500
73

Frequently Asked Questions

Which is better, Seed 1.6 Flash or Z-1?

Seed 1.6 Flash is ahead overall, 56 to 47. The biggest single separator in this matchup is MMMU-Pro, where the scores are 74 and 46.

Which is better for knowledge tasks, Seed 1.6 Flash or Z-1?

Seed 1.6 Flash has the edge for knowledge tasks in this comparison, averaging 47.3 versus 42.7. Inside this category, MMLU is the benchmark that creates the most daylight between them.

Which is better for coding, Seed 1.6 Flash or Z-1?

Seed 1.6 Flash has the edge for coding in this comparison, averaging 27.6 versus 26.7. Inside this category, HumanEval is the benchmark that creates the most daylight between them.

Which is better for math, Seed 1.6 Flash or Z-1?

Seed 1.6 Flash has the edge for math in this comparison, averaging 67.1 versus 60.9. Inside this category, AIME 2023 is the benchmark that creates the most daylight between them.

Which is better for reasoning, Seed 1.6 Flash or Z-1?

Seed 1.6 Flash has the edge for reasoning in this comparison, averaging 66.8 versus 54.8. Inside this category, MRCRv2 is the benchmark that creates the most daylight between them.

Which is better for agentic tasks, Seed 1.6 Flash or Z-1?

Seed 1.6 Flash has the edge for agentic tasks in this comparison, averaging 54.5 versus 42.2. 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, Seed 1.6 Flash or Z-1?

Seed 1.6 Flash has the edge for multimodal and grounded tasks in this comparison, averaging 73.1 versus 50.5. Inside this category, MMMU-Pro is the benchmark that creates the most daylight between them.

Which is better for instruction following, Seed 1.6 Flash or Z-1?

Seed 1.6 Flash has the edge for instruction following in this comparison, averaging 81 versus 80. Inside this category, IFEval is the benchmark that creates the most daylight between them.

Which is better for multilingual tasks, Seed 1.6 Flash or Z-1?

Seed 1.6 Flash has the edge for multilingual tasks in this comparison, averaging 72.8 versus 72.7. Inside this category, MGSM is the benchmark that creates the most daylight between them.

Last updated: March 12, 2026

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