Head-to-head · frontier vs frontier

Gemini 3 Pro Pro vs GPT-5.1 Reasoning: which model should you choose?

We compared Gemini 3 Pro Pro and GPT-5.1 Reasoning on price, context window and 12 benchmarks. GPT-5.1 Reasoning has the stronger average benchmark score; GPT-5.1 Reasoning is cheaper on a blended 3:1 basis.

Google DeepMind

Gemini 3 Pro Pro

Gemini 3 Pro Pro is a frontier model from Google DeepMind. It offers a 200,000-token context window, costs $19.80 per million input tokens and $108.61 per million output tokens, and averages 87.3 across the index's benchmark suite.

Input
$19.80 / 1M
Output
$108.61 / 1M
Context
200,000
Avg score
87.3
Open weights
No
Full Gemini 3 Pro Pro page
OpenAI

GPT-5.1 Reasoning

GPT-5.1 Reasoning is a frontier model from OpenAI. It offers a 400,000-token context window, costs $20.27 per million input tokens and $82.11 per million output tokens, and averages 88.3 across the index's benchmark suite.

Input
$20.27 / 1M
Output
$82.11 / 1M
Context
400,000
Avg score
88.3
Open weights
No
Full GPT-5.1 Reasoning page

Specification comparison

SpecGemini 3 Pro ProGPT-5.1 ReasoningEdge
Input price / 1M$19.80$20.27A
Output price / 1M$108.61$82.11B
Context window200,000400,000B
Max output8,192128,000B
Average score87.388.3B
Arena Elo1484.41485.9B
Open weightsNoNoTie

Benchmark comparison

Gemini 3 Pro Pro wins 3, GPT-5.1 Reasoning wins 9, and 0 benchmarks are tied. The table shows the modelled score for each model and the gap.

BenchmarkGemini 3 Pro ProGPT-5.1 ReasoningGapWinner
MMLU-Pro88.290.01.8GPT-5.1 Reasoning
GPQA Diamond81.485.64.2GPT-5.1 Reasoning
SWE-bench Verified75.776.00.3GPT-5.1 Reasoning
HumanEval95.092.92.1Gemini 3 Pro Pro
MATH-50091.695.94.3GPT-5.1 Reasoning
AIME 202588.085.03.0Gemini 3 Pro Pro
LiveCodeBench83.180.92.2Gemini 3 Pro Pro
IFEval92.794.61.9GPT-5.1 Reasoning
TruthfulQA87.690.02.4GPT-5.1 Reasoning
HellaSwag93.694.40.8GPT-5.1 Reasoning
MMMU83.286.23.0GPT-5.1 Reasoning
Arena Elo1484.41485.91.5GPT-5.1 Reasoning

Price analysis

On a blended 3:1 input-to-output basis, Gemini 3 Pro Pro costs about $42.00 per million tokens and GPT-5.1 Reasoning costs about $35.73. GPT-5.1 Reasoning is roughly 15% cheaper than Gemini 3 Pro Pro. At high volume, that gap compounds quickly, so price should carry real weight unless the quality difference is decisive.

GPT-5.1 Reasoning has the larger context window at 400,000 tokens, compared with 200,000 for Gemini 3 Pro Pro. That matters for long documents, large codebases and multi-step agent traces.

Verdict

Across 12 shared benchmarks, Gemini 3 Pro Pro wins 3, GPT-5.1 Reasoning wins 9, and 0 are tied. On the index average, GPT-5.1 Reasoning leads Gemini 3 Pro Pro by 1.0 points (88.3 versus 87.3).

The price picture favours GPT-5.1 Reasoning. The context picture favours GPT-5.1 Reasoning. Those two dimensions often matter more than a few benchmark points once a model is good enough for the task.

If you need a single default, start with GPT-5.1 Reasoning for quality-sensitive work, and check whether its price holds at your expected volume before committing.

Choose Gemini 3 Pro Pro if

  • You prefer Google DeepMind's tooling or already use it.

Choose GPT-5.1 Reasoning if

  • You want the higher average benchmark score in this index.
  • Unit cost matters and you want the cheaper blended price.
  • You need the larger 400,000-token context window.
  • You need the larger 128,000-token output limit.

FAQ

Is Gemini 3 Pro Pro better than GPT-5.1 Reasoning?

On the index average, GPT-5.1 Reasoning leads Gemini 3 Pro Pro by 1.0 points (88.3 versus 87.3). The better choice depends on price, context and your task. Gemini 3 Pro Pro wins 3 benchmarks, GPT-5.1 Reasoning wins 9.

Which is cheaper, Gemini 3 Pro Pro or GPT-5.1 Reasoning?

GPT-5.1 Reasoning is cheaper on a blended 3:1 basis at about $35.73 per million tokens, versus $42.00 for Gemini 3 Pro Pro.

Which has the larger context window?

GPT-5.1 Reasoning has the larger context window at 400,000 tokens. Gemini 3 Pro Pro has 200,000 tokens.

Are these models open weights?

Gemini 3 Pro Pro is proprietary; GPT-5.1 Reasoning is proprietary.

Which should I choose for production?

If you need a single default, start with GPT-5.1 Reasoning for quality-sensitive work, and check whether its price holds at your expected volume before committing.

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