BenchLeader

GPT-5.2 vs GPT-5.6 Sol

Full profiles: GPT-5.2 (OpenAI) and GPT-5.6 Sol (OpenAI): every benchmark, price and rank.

Updated · Data from 10 sources

As of 2 Nov 2026, GPT-5.6 Sol is ahead of GPT-5.2 on quality (65.4 vs 60.1 on the BenchLeader Index), but GPT-5.2 is 1.7× cheaper at $4.81 vs $8.00 per 1M tokens blended. Choose GPT-5.2 for instruction following (74 vs 71); choose GPT-5.6 Sol for maths (71 vs 57), agents & tools (67 vs 55), and knowledge (64 vs 56).

Key facts (as of 2 Nov 2026)

  • GPT-5.2 scores 60.1 on the BenchLeader Index and GPT-5.6 Sol scores 65.4 (BenchLeader, 2 Nov 2026).
  • GPT-5.2 costs $4.81 per 1M tokens blended (list price, 2 Nov 2026).
  • GPT-5.6 Sol costs $8.00 per 1M tokens blended (list price, 2 Nov 2026).
  • Of the 35 benchmarks both models have, GPT-5.6 Sol leads 30 (BenchLeader, 2 Nov 2026).

Which to pick for…

The pick's numbers come first. Category scores on the BenchLeader scale (50 is the average model, 15 points one standard deviation). High confidence means a lead of half a standard deviation or more; under one point is called either.

Use casePickWhyConfidence
CodingGPT-5.6 Sol66 vs 63 category score; WeirdML 87.0% vs 72.2%Medium
Agents & tool useGPT-5.6 Sol67 vs 55 category score; Terminal-Bench Hard 65.9% vs 47.0%High
MathsGPT-5.6 Sol71 vs 57 category score; FrontierMath Tiers 1–3 89.1% vs 67.4%High
ReasoningGPT-5.6 Sol65 vs 61 category score; GPQA Diamond 93.5% vs 91.4%Medium
KnowledgeGPT-5.6 Sol64 vs 56 category score; SimpleQA Verified 69.7% vs 37.1%High
Long documentsEither66 vs 67 category score; AA-LCR v1.1 82.7% vs 84.0%Either
Following instructionsGPT-5.274 vs 71 category score; IFBench 75.4% vs 72.7%Medium
Lowest costGPT-5.2$4.81 vs $8.00 per 1M blended; agentic coding session $0.161 vs $0.320–
Fastest first answerGPT-5.6 Sol115.7 s (GPT-5.6 Sol (max)) vs 153.5 s (GPT-5.2 (xhigh)) to the first answer token–
High volume on a budgetNeither flagshipA smaller model is usually the better fit: Cheapest good LLMs, Fastest LLMs–

Key differences

  • GPT-5.6 Sol (max) leads on quality: 65.4 vs 60.1.
  • GPT-5.2 (xhigh) is stronger in instruction following.
  • GPT-5.6 Sol (max) is stronger in agents & tools, coding, knowledge, long context, maths, reasoning, multimodal.
  • GPT-5.2 (xhigh) is 1.7× cheaper ($4.81 vs $8.00 per 1M blended).
  • GPT-5.6 Sol (max) streams 1.6× faster (127 vs 80 tokens per second).

At a glance

SpecGPT-5.2GPT-5.6 Sol
DeveloperOpenAIOpenAI
Released11 Dec 20259 Jul 2026
Context window (tokens)400,0001,050,000
Compared atGPT-5.2 (xhigh)GPT-5.6 Sol (max)
Open weightsNoNo
Price in / out / cached input per 1M$1.75 / $14.00 / $0.175$4.00 / $20.00 / $0.400

Category by category

Category scores on the BenchLeader scale: 50 is the average evaluated model, 15 points is one standard deviation. A gap under one point is called level.

CategoryGPT-5.2 (xhigh)GPT-5.6 Sol (max)Leader
Reasoning60.965.2GPT-5.6 Sol
Coding62.965.8GPT-5.6 Sol
Agents & tools54.766.6GPT-5.6 Sol
Maths56.870.8GPT-5.6 Sol
Knowledge56.063.9GPT-5.6 Sol
Instruction following73.671.1GPT-5.2
Multimodal–66.1not comparable
Long context66.266.9level

On one chart

Each domain on the index's own scale, where 50 is an average model. Click a domain to see the benchmarks behind it. Pick up to 5 models from the list.

2550 avg75ReasoningCodingAgents & toolsMathsKnowledgeInstructionfollowingLong contextGPT-5.2, Reasoning: 60.9GPT-5.2, Coding: 62.9GPT-5.2, Agents & tools: 54.7GPT-5.2, Maths: 56.8GPT-5.2, Knowledge: 56.0GPT-5.2, Instruction following: 73.6GPT-5.2, Long context: 66.2GPT-5.6 Sol, Reasoning: 65.2GPT-5.6 Sol, Coding: 65.8GPT-5.6 Sol, Agents & tools: 66.6GPT-5.6 Sol, Maths: 70.8GPT-5.6 Sol, Knowledge: 63.9GPT-5.6 Sol, Instruction following: 71.1GPT-5.6 Sol, Long context: 66.9

Not drawn, measured for fewer than two of these models: Multimodal, Human preference.

ModelIndex

Where sources disagree

Across the 35 benchmarks both have, GPT-5.2 leads 5, GPT-5.6 Sol leads 30. Every overall index that rates both puts GPT-5.6 Sol ahead.

Overall indexGPT-5.2 (xhigh)GPT-5.6 Sol (max)Leader
BenchLeader Index60.165.4GPT-5.6 Sol
Arena Text1437†1485GPT-5.6 Sol

Each publisher runs its own tasks, harnesses and effort settings, so their overall verdicts can differ; BenchLeader reconciles them on one scale. † measured at another effort setting of the same model (the publisher did not test the one compared here).

Price, speed and latency

List prices blended at three input tokens per output token. Per-task prices use the token counts on the methodology page. Cost, tokens and time per benchmark task are measured: Artificial Analysis’ averages over its whole Intelligence Index run.

MeasureGPT-5.2 (xhigh)GPT-5.6 Sol (max)
Blended price per 1M tokens$4.81$8.00
Input / output per 1M$1.75 / $14.00$4.00 / $20.00
Cached input per 1M$0.175$0.400
Price per task: chat reply$0.0049$0.0076
Price per task: summarize a 30-page report$0.029$0.060
Price per task: code edit$0.032$0.054
Price per task: agentic coding session$0.161$0.320
Price per task: structured extraction$0.0063$0.012
Agentic coding session, input mostly cached$0.090$0.158
Output speed80 tok/s127 tok/s
Time to first answer153.5 s115.7 s
Time to a complete answer159.7 s119.6 s

Each model is compared at its best-ranked reasoning-effort setting. GPT-5.2 (xhigh) scores 60.1 and takes 154 s to its first answer token; GPT-5.2 scores 57.9 in 2 s, GPT-5.2 (medium) scores 56.2 in 2 s. GPT-5.6 Sol (max) scores 65.4 and takes 116 s to its first answer token; GPT-5.6 Sol (xhigh) scores 64.2 in 49 s, GPT-5.6 Sol (high) scores 63.6 in 12 s. Higher effort means more thinking before the answer: better scores, longer waits and more tokens billed. How reasoning effort changes scores and cost.

Every benchmark

164 benchmarks, grouped by category; each name links to the board and its leaders. † measured at another effort setting of the same model, shown for reference and not counted as a win.

MetricPublisherGPT-5.2 (xhigh)GPT-5.6 Sol (max)
BenchLeader IndexBenchLeader60.165.4
Agents & tools scoreBenchLeader54.766.6
Coding scoreBenchLeader62.965.8
Instruction following scoreBenchLeader73.671.1
Knowledge scoreBenchLeader56.063.9
Long context scoreBenchLeader66.266.9
Maths scoreBenchLeader56.870.8
Reasoning scoreBenchLeader60.965.2
Multimodal scoreBenchLeader–66.1
Blended price $/MBenchLeader$4.81$8.00
Output speedBenchLeader80 tok/s127 tok/s
Time to first answerBenchLeader153.5 s115.7 s
Context windowBenchLeader400,000 tokens1,050,000 tokens
Reasoning
GPQA DiamondEpoch AI Benchmarking Hub91.4%93.5%
Humanity's Last ExamScale AI / CAIS27.8%†–
SimpleBenchSimpleBench45.8%†64.8%†
Arena Hard PromptsArena (LMArena)1497†1511†
LiveBench 1.0 ReasoningLiveBench83.2%†91.7%
GPQA Diamond (AA)Artificial Analysis90.3%94.1%
Humanity's Last Exam (AA)Artificial Analysis37.7%49.5%
GPQA Diamond (Vals)Vals AI91.7%95.2%
EnigmaEvalScale AI SEAL–37.1%†
Kagi LLM BenchmarkKagi LLM Benchmark73.3%†67.0%†
ARC-AGI-1ARC Prize86.2%96.5%
ARC-AGI-2ARC Prize52.9%92.5%
ARC-AGI-3ARC Prize–7.8%
CritPtArtificial Analysis11.6%32.3%
CritPt v2 hard subset (AA)Artificial Analysis–56.0%
MysteryMechanismVals AI–33.3%
SciPredictScale AI SEAL20.6%†–
Chess PuzzlesEpoch AI Benchmarking Hub48.0%59.0%
Mystery Game PuzzlesEpoch AI Benchmarking Hub22.0%†58.0%
CL-benchEpoch AI Benchmarking Hub18.2%†–
LMCAEpoch AI Benchmarking Hub43.9%58.4%
DTBenchEpoch AI Benchmarking Hub90.9%95.5%
ForecastBenchForecastBench64.2%†65.5%
BTF-3Epoch AI Benchmarking Hub–13.7%
Coding
SWE-bench Verified (Epoch)Epoch AI Benchmarking Hub73.8%†–
Show all 164 benchmarks
MetricPublisherGPT-5.2 (xhigh)GPT-5.6 Sol (max)
Coding
SciCodeSciCode–57.1%
WeirdMLWeirdML72.2%87.0%
FrontierCodeCognition–47.5%†
GSO-BenchGSO-Bench27.4%†76.5%†
Arena CodingArena (LMArena)1515†1533†
Arena WebDevArena (LMArena)1416†1616†
LiveBench 1.0 CodingLiveBench76.1%†83.9%
LiveCodeBenchVals AI85.4%82.6%
IOIVals AI–91.2%
SWE-bench (Vals)Vals AI75.8%96.2%
SWE-Bench ProScale AI SEAL29.9%†–
SWE-bench Verified (bash only)SWE-bench69.0%†–
SWE-bench Verified (any scaffold)SWE-bench72.8%†–
Code MigrationVals AI–52.9%
ProgramBenchVals AI–1.5%
Vibe Code Bench 1-100Vals AI–20.0%
Vibe Code Bench v1.1Vals AI53.5%80.5%
SWE-Bench Pro (private)Scale AI SEAL29.9%†–
SWE Atlas: Codebase QnAScale AI SEAL–46.0%†
SWE Atlas: Test WritingScale AI SEAL–45.9%†
MirrorCodeEpoch AI Benchmarking Hub–20.0%†
Surface Evolver BenchEpoch AI Benchmarking Hub–93.1%†
DeepSWE v1.1Epoch AI Benchmarking Hub–72.7%
CursorBenchCursor–41.7%
ALE-BenchEpoch AI Benchmarking Hub1249.8†2176.9
AlgoTuneAlgoTune2.0†–
FrontierSWEEpoch AI Benchmarking Hub–32.2%
Terminal-Bench 4.0 (AA)Artificial Analysis–39.9%
Terminal-Bench 2.1 (AA)Artificial Analysis–88.0%
Startrise FrontendStartrise–66.2%†
GameBench 2 OverallDuelLab GameBench 2–68.7†
GameBench 2 by reasoning settingDuelLab GameBench 2–81.1†
LiveCodeBench (AA)Artificial Analysis88.9%–
Agents & tools
Terminal-BenchTerminal-Bench64.9%†37.3%
OSWorld-Verified 2.0OSWorld–27.3%
GDPvalOpenAI49.7%†–
Remote Labor IndexScale AI / CAIS2.1%†–
APEX-AgentsMercor–51.4%†
Arena AgentArena (LMArena)–4.8†
LiveBench Agentic CodingLiveBench50.3%†56.2%
Terminal-Bench HardArtificial Analysis47.0%65.9%
τ²-Bench Telecom (AA)Artificial Analysis84.8%85.1%
Terminal-Bench 2.1 (Vals)Vals AI–85.8%
MCP AtlasScale AI SEAL67.6%–
HiL-BenchScale AI SEAL–32.3%†
BFCL OverallBerkeley Function Calling Leaderboard55.9%†–
τ²-benchτ²-bench84.8%†–
τ³-bench Bankingτ²-bench32.2%†46.9%†
τ³-Banking (AA)Artificial Analysis11.1%†44.3%
ITBench SRE (AA)Artificial Analysis–56.2%
Analyst Agent (AA)Artificial Analysis–47.5%
CUA-benchVals AI–8.3%
CyberBenchVals AI–76.3%
Finance Agent v2Vals AI–53.8%
Harvey's Legal Agent Benchmark v1Vals AI–2.5%
Legal Research BenchVals AI–48.1%
Poker AgentVals AI1131.8%†–
SkillsBenchVals AI–54.1%
SREBenchVals AI–30.5%
Tax Agent BenchVals AI–31.1%
Terminal-Bench 2.0 (Vals)Vals AI51.7%†–
Terminal-Bench 4.0 (Vals)Vals AI–37.9%
Terminal-Bench ScienceVals AI–20.0%
Time Horizon Index: KSPVals AI–23.8%
Web Search IndexVals AI–43.6%
Arena SearchArena (LMArena)–1258†
BALROGBALROG–60.0%
DeepResearch BenchDeepResearch Bench41.1%†–
PostTrainBenchEpoch AI Benchmarking Hub–36.2%
METR Time HorizonsMETR75.3%†–
GBAEvalEpoch AI Benchmarking Hub–52.6%†
Vending-Bench 2Andon Labs3591.3†9619.4†
AutomationBenchArtificial Analysis–60.1%
GDP.pdf (AA)Artificial Analysis–27.2%
EnterpriseOps-GymArtificial Analysis–42.9%
AA-Briefcase v1.1Artificial Analysis–1479
Terminal-Bench-Science 0.1 (AA)Artificial Analysis–22.4%
FACTS SearchGoogle–88.5%†
Maths
FrontierMath Tiers 1–3Epoch AI Benchmarking Hub67.4%89.1%
FrontierMath Tier 4Epoch AI Benchmarking Hub31.7%82.9%
OTIS Mock AIMEEpoch AI Benchmarking Hub96.1%100.0%
ProofBenchVals AI15.0%83.0%
LiveBench MathematicsLiveBench93.2%†96.2%
AIME (Vals)Vals AI96.9%–
MGSMVals AI94.0%–
AIME 2026MathArena98.3%†–
HMMT February 2026MathArena97.0%†–
MathArena ApexMathArena13.5%†–
Arena MathsArena (LMArena)1454†1495†
Knowledge
SimpleQA VerifiedEpoch AI Benchmarking Hub37.1%69.7%
LiveBench 1.0 Data AnalysisLiveBench78.2%†79.8%
MMLU-ProVals AI86.2%89.1%
LegalBenchVals AI82.8%87.0%
CorpFinVals AI65.9%64.4%
TaxEvalVals AI75.8%74.8%
MedQAVals AI94.1%–
PRBench FinanceScale AI SEAL–50.5%
PRBench LegalScale AI SEAL–50.5%
MultiNRCScale AI SEAL42.2%†–
BioMysteryBenchVals AI–71.1%
CaseLaw v2Vals AI66.0%–
Excel Modeling BenchmarkVals AI–72.3%
MedCodeVals AI49.8%44.0%
MedScribeVals AI84.4%85.2%
Public Benefits Bench v1.1Vals AI–66.5%
DrugDiscoveryBenchScale AI SEAL29.3%56.5%
EBR-benchEpoch AI Benchmarking Hub23.0%44.8%
GDP.pdfEpoch AI Benchmarking Hub–30.7%
Global-MMLU-Lite (AA)Artificial Analysis89.8%†–
Instruction following
LiveBench LanguageLiveBench79.8%†87.7%
LiveBench Instruction FollowingLiveBench61.8%†71.8%
IFBenchArtificial Analysis75.4%72.7%
TutorBenchScale AI SEAL53.5%†–
Arena Instruction FollowingArena (LMArena)1457†1491†
Human preference
Arena TextArena (LMArena)1476†1485†
EQ-Bench 4EQ-Bench–1236†
Arena Creative WritingArena (LMArena)1433†1470†
Arena Multi-turnArena (LMArena)1494†1490†
Arena Longer QueriesArena (LMArena)1472†1498†
Multimodal
Arena VisionArena (LMArena)1268†1281†
MMMU-ProArtificial Analysis74.6%†83.4%
VISTAScale AI SEAL46.6%†–
MMMU-Pro (Vals)Vals AI86.7%88.8%
MortgageTaxVals AI67.1%67.3%
VPCTEpoch AI Benchmarking Hub84.0%–
Blueprint-Bench 2Epoch AI Benchmarking Hub–33.6%†
Long context
AA-LCR v1.1Artificial Analysis82.7%84.0%
Arena DocumentArena (LMArena)1425†1489†
MLCRArtificial Analysis–30.0%
Composite
Epoch Capabilities IndexEpoch AI Benchmarking Hub153.8†162.6†
LiveBench 1.0LiveBench74.6%†81.0%
AA Intelligence Index v4.3.2Artificial Analysis30.447.0
AA Progress Index v1Artificial Analysis295.5331.5
Vals RSI IndexVals AI15.8%23.9%
Vals Science IndexVals AI–41.5%
Vals Multimodal IndexVals AI–72.6%
Safety & honesty
FORTRESSScale AI SEAL17.5%†20.1%†
MASKScale AI SEAL86.7%†–
PropensityBenchScale AI SEAL34.4%†–

Data as of 2026-11-02. Best configuration of each model; every score links to its source on the model pages.

DuelLab GameBench 2, release gb2-20261026-cb69502a12d9 (https://benchmarks.duellab.org/releases/gb2-20261026-cb69502a12d9/), CC BY 4.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/). Scores mapped to BenchLeader model names; not endorsed by DuelLab.

What changed

  • GPT-5.2 (xhigh): 1 new result (AA Progress Index v1).
  • GPT-5.6 Sol (max): 2 new results (AA Progress Index v1, CritPt v2 hard subset (AA)).
  • GPT-5.6 Sol (max): 1 new result (AA-Briefcase v1.1).
  • GPT-5.2 (xhigh): 1 new result (Vals RSI Index).
  • GPT-5.6 Sol (max): 3 new results (Harvey's Legal Agent Benchmark v1, Vals RSI Index, Vals Science Index).
  • GPT-5.6 Sol (max): 1 score revision.
  • GPT-5.6 Sol (max): 1 new result (ForecastBench).
  • GPT-5.2 (xhigh): BenchLeader Index 60.8 → 60.3.
  • GPT-5.6 Sol (max): 5 new results (AutomationBench, GDP.pdf (AA), MLCR…).
  • GPT-5.6 Sol (max): 1 score revision.

Rankings: Best LLM overall · Best LLM for agents · Best cheap LLMs

GPT-5.2 vs GPT-5.6 Sol: questions

Is GPT-5.6 Sol better than GPT-5.2?
GPT-5.6 Sol (max) leads on quality: 65.4 vs 60.1. The BenchLeader Index combines every independent quality benchmark; GPT-5.6 Sol (max) is ahead overall as of 2 Nov 2026, but check the category scores for your use.
GPT-5.2 vs GPT-5.6 Sol: which is cheaper, and will that change?
GPT-5.2 is cheaper today: $4.81 against $8.00 per million tokens, blended at three input tokens per output token. No price change has been announced for either.
Is GPT-5.2 or GPT-5.6 Sol better for coding?
GPT-5.6 Sol scores higher in coding (66 vs 63 on the category index, where 50 is average). On LiveCodeBench, the top shared coding benchmark, it is 85.4% for GPT-5.2 against 82.6% for GPT-5.6 Sol.
Which is faster, GPT-5.2 or GPT-5.6 Sol?
GPT-5.6 Sol streams faster (127 vs 80 output tokens per second, Artificial Analysis 7-day median).
Is GPT-5.2 or GPT-5.6 Sol better for agents and tool use?
GPT-5.6 Sol scores higher in agentic tasks (67 vs 55 on the category index, where 50 is average). On Terminal-Bench Hard, the top shared agents & tools benchmark, it is 47.0% for GPT-5.2 against 65.9% for GPT-5.6 Sol.
More questions (4)
Which is better for long documents?
They are level on long-context benchmarks (66 vs 67). GPT-5.6 Sol accepts more context: 1,050,000 against 400,000 tokens for GPT-5.2.
Which has lower latency?
GPT-5.6 Sol answers first: 115.7 s against 153.5 s to the first answer token, as Artificial Analysis measures it. Reasoning effort drives most of this: a higher setting thinks longer before it answers.
Do independent benchmarks agree on GPT-5.2 vs GPT-5.6 Sol?
Across the 35 benchmarks both have, GPT-5.2 leads 5, GPT-5.6 Sol leads 30. Every overall index that rates both puts GPT-5.6 Sol ahead.
When was GPT-5.6 Sol released?
GPT-5.6 Sol was released on 9 Jul 2026.