BenchLeader

GPT-5.2-Codex vs GPT-5.5 Instant

Verdict
  • GPT-5.2-Codex and GPT-5.5 Instant are level on quality (60.8 vs 60.5).
  • GPT-5.2-Codex is stronger in instruction following, long context, multimodal.
  • GPT-5.5 Instant is stronger in agents & tools, coding, composite, knowledge, human preference, maths, reasoning.
  • GPT-5.2-Codex is 2.3× cheaper ($4.81 vs $11.25 per 1M blended).
  • GPT-5.5 Instant streams 5.1× faster (129 vs 25 tokens per second).
MetricGPT-5.2-CodexGPT-5.5 Instant
BenchLeader Index60.860.5
Agents & tools score63.570.7
Coding score55.761.1
Composite score56.862.9
Instruction following score75.169.8
Knowledge score63.169.4
Long context score67.861.4
Multimodal score60.759.7
Human preference score67.5
Maths score42.5
Reasoning score62.6
Blended price $/M$4.81$11.25
Output speed25 tok/s129 tok/s
Time to first answer6.7 s16.8 s
Context window400k400k
GPQA Diamond82.5%
FrontierMath Tiers 1–326.3%
FrontierMath Tier 42.4%
OTIS Mock AIME68.1%
Terminal-Bench66.5%
SciCode48.6%
APEX-Agents27.6%
Epoch Capabilities Index142.5
LMArena Text1474
LMArena Hard Prompts1491
LMArena Coding1514
LMArena WebDev1339
LMArena Vision1251
LiveBench74.0%
LiveBench Reasoning77.7%
LiveBench Coding83.6%
LiveBench Agentic Coding49.4%
LiveBench Mathematics88.8%
LiveBench Data Analysis78.2%
LiveBench Language73.7%
AA Intelligence Index28.526.8
IFBench77.6%71.5%
AA-LCR82.3%70.0%
MMMU-Pro76.3%
AA-Omniscience-2.211.2
Terminal-Bench Hard37.1%42.4%
GPQA Diamond (AA)89.9%84.7%
Humanity's Last Exam (AA)35.7%21.6%
SciCode (AA)52.5%
τ²-Bench Telecom (AA)92.1%49.4%
LiveCodeBench88.0%
SWE-Bench Pro41.0%
SWE-bench Verified (bash only)72.8%
SWE-bench Verified (any scaffold)72.8%

Data as of 2026-09-10. Best configuration of each model; every score links to its source on the model pages.

GPT-5.2-Codex vs GPT-5.5 Instant: questions

Is GPT-5.2-Codex better than GPT-5.5 Instant?
GPT-5.2-Codex and GPT-5.5 Instant are level on quality (60.8 vs 60.5). The BenchLeader Index combines every independent quality benchmark; GPT-5.2-Codex is ahead overall as of 2026-09-10, but check the category scores for your use.
Is GPT-5.2-Codex better than GPT-5.5 Instant for coding?
GPT-5.5 Instant scores higher in coding (61 vs 56 on the category index, where 50 is average).
Is GPT-5.2-Codex better than GPT-5.5 Instant for agentic tasks?
GPT-5.5 Instant scores higher in agentic tasks (71 vs 64 on the category index, where 50 is average).
Which is cheaper, GPT-5.2-Codex or GPT-5.5 Instant?
GPT-5.2-Codex is cheaper: $4.81 against $11.25 per million tokens, blended at three input tokens per output token.
Which is faster, GPT-5.2-Codex or GPT-5.5 Instant?
GPT-5.5 Instant streams faster: 129 against 25 output tokens per second.
Which has the larger context window?
Both accept 400k tokens of context.