Head-to-head · frontier vs frontier

GPT-5.1 Max vs GPT-5.2 Turbo: which model should you choose?

We compared GPT-5.1 Max and GPT-5.2 Turbo on price, context window and 12 benchmarks. GPT-5.1 Max has the stronger average benchmark score; GPT-5.2 Turbo is cheaper on a blended 3:1 basis.

OpenAI

GPT-5.1 Max

GPT-5.1 Max is a frontier model from OpenAI. It offers a 2,000,000-token context window, costs $20.50 per million input tokens and $103.98 per million output tokens, and averages 87.9 across the index's benchmark suite.

Input: $20.50 / 1M
Output: $103.98 / 1M
Context: 2,000,000
Avg score: 87.9
Open weights: No

Full GPT-5.1 Max page

OpenAI

GPT-5.2 Turbo

GPT-5.2 Turbo is a frontier model from OpenAI. It offers a 1,000,000-token context window, costs $20.73 per million input tokens and $96.05 per million output tokens, and averages 87.4 across the index's benchmark suite.

Input: $20.73 / 1M
Output: $96.05 / 1M
Context: 1,000,000
Avg score: 87.4
Open weights: No

Full GPT-5.2 Turbo page

Specification comparison

Spec	GPT-5.1 Max	GPT-5.2 Turbo	Edge
Input price / 1M	$20.50	$20.73	A
Output price / 1M	$103.98	$96.05	B
Context window	2,000,000	1,000,000	A
Max output	8,192	8,192	Tie
Average score	87.9	87.4	A
Arena Elo	1478.2	1500.3	B
Open weights	No	No	Tie

Benchmark comparison

GPT-5.1 Max wins 6, GPT-5.2 Turbo wins 6, and 0 benchmarks are tied. The table shows the modelled score for each model and the gap.

Benchmark	GPT-5.1 Max	GPT-5.2 Turbo	Gap	Winner
MMLU-Pro	91.3	87.3	4.0	GPT-5.1 Max
GPQA Diamond	86.4	84.0	2.4	GPT-5.1 Max
SWE-bench Verified	75.6	77.4	1.8	GPT-5.2 Turbo
HumanEval	92.2	93.2	1.0	GPT-5.2 Turbo
MATH-500	91.3	92.7	1.4	GPT-5.2 Turbo
AIME 2025	88.8	86.7	2.1	GPT-5.1 Max
LiveCodeBench	80.2	82.5	2.3	GPT-5.2 Turbo
IFEval	92.2	92.0	0.2	GPT-5.1 Max
TruthfulQA	91.1	87.3	3.8	GPT-5.1 Max
HellaSwag	93.1	95.5	2.4	GPT-5.2 Turbo
MMMU	85.1	83.3	1.8	GPT-5.1 Max
Arena Elo	1478.2	1500.3	22.1	GPT-5.2 Turbo

Price analysis

On a blended 3:1 input-to-output basis, GPT-5.1 Max costs about $41.37 per million tokens and GPT-5.2 Turbo costs about $39.56. GPT-5.2 Turbo is roughly 4% cheaper than GPT-5.1 Max. At high volume, that gap compounds quickly, so price should carry real weight unless the quality difference is decisive.

GPT-5.1 Max has the larger context window at 2,000,000 tokens, compared with 1,000,000 for GPT-5.2 Turbo. That matters for long documents, large codebases and multi-step agent traces.

Verdict

Across 12 shared benchmarks, GPT-5.1 Max wins 6, GPT-5.2 Turbo wins 6, and 0 are tied. On the index average, GPT-5.1 Max leads GPT-5.2 Turbo by 0.5 points (87.9 versus 87.4).

The price picture favours GPT-5.2 Turbo. The context picture favours GPT-5.1 Max. 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 Max for quality-sensitive work and GPT-5.2 Turbo for high-volume, well-scoped tasks. Run both on a sample of your own traffic before locking in a choice.

Choose GPT-5.1 Max if

You want the higher average benchmark score in this index.
You need the larger 2,000,000-token context window.

Choose GPT-5.2 Turbo if

Unit cost matters and you want the cheaper blended price.

FAQ

Is GPT-5.1 Max better than GPT-5.2 Turbo?

On the index average, GPT-5.1 Max leads GPT-5.2 Turbo by 0.5 points (87.9 versus 87.4). The better choice depends on price, context and your task. GPT-5.1 Max wins 6 benchmarks, GPT-5.2 Turbo wins 6.

Which is cheaper, GPT-5.1 Max or GPT-5.2 Turbo?

GPT-5.2 Turbo is cheaper on a blended 3:1 basis at about $39.56 per million tokens, versus $41.37 for GPT-5.1 Max.

Which has the larger context window?

GPT-5.1 Max has the larger context window at 2,000,000 tokens. GPT-5.2 Turbo has 1,000,000 tokens.

Are these models open weights?

GPT-5.1 Max is proprietary; GPT-5.2 Turbo is proprietary.

Which should I choose for production?