Head-to-head · frontier vs frontier

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

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

OpenAI

GPT-5.1 Turbo

GPT-5.1 Turbo is a frontier model from OpenAI. It offers a 2,000,000-token context window, costs $19.19 per million input tokens and $89.83 per million output tokens, and averages 86.1 across the index's benchmark suite.

Input: $19.19 / 1M
Output: $89.83 / 1M
Context: 2,000,000
Avg score: 86.1
Open weights: No

Full GPT-5.1 Turbo page

OpenAI

GPT-5.2 Vision

GPT-5.2 Vision is a frontier model from OpenAI. It offers a 1,000,000-token context window, costs $19.03 per million input tokens and $85.72 per million output tokens, and averages 87.4 across the index's benchmark suite.

Input: $19.03 / 1M
Output: $85.72 / 1M
Context: 1,000,000
Avg score: 87.4
Open weights: No

Full GPT-5.2 Vision page

Specification comparison

Spec	GPT-5.1 Turbo	GPT-5.2 Vision	Edge
Input price / 1M	$19.19	$19.03	B
Output price / 1M	$89.83	$85.72	B
Context window	2,000,000	1,000,000	A
Max output	128,000	16,384	A
Average score	86.1	87.4	B
Arena Elo	1482.0	1484.3	B
Open weights	No	No	Tie

Benchmark comparison

GPT-5.1 Turbo wins 3, GPT-5.2 Vision wins 9, and 0 benchmarks are tied. The table shows the modelled score for each model and the gap.

Benchmark	GPT-5.1 Turbo	GPT-5.2 Vision	Gap	Winner
MMLU-Pro	85.2	89.5	4.3	GPT-5.2 Vision
GPQA Diamond	81.3	82.1	0.8	GPT-5.2 Vision
SWE-bench Verified	74.7	78.8	4.1	GPT-5.2 Vision
HumanEval	91.5	91.2	0.3	GPT-5.1 Turbo
MATH-500	91.4	92.9	1.5	GPT-5.2 Vision
AIME 2025	84.7	85.7	1.0	GPT-5.2 Vision
LiveCodeBench	84.6	83.4	1.2	GPT-5.1 Turbo
IFEval	93.4	93.9	0.5	GPT-5.2 Vision
TruthfulQA	89.2	85.3	3.9	GPT-5.1 Turbo
HellaSwag	91.3	94.6	3.3	GPT-5.2 Vision
MMMU	79.7	84.4	4.7	GPT-5.2 Vision
Arena Elo	1482.0	1484.3	2.3	GPT-5.2 Vision

Price analysis

On a blended 3:1 input-to-output basis, GPT-5.1 Turbo costs about $36.85 per million tokens and GPT-5.2 Vision costs about $35.70. GPT-5.2 Vision is roughly 3% cheaper than GPT-5.1 Turbo. At high volume, that gap compounds quickly, so price should carry real weight unless the quality difference is decisive.

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

Verdict

Across 12 shared benchmarks, GPT-5.1 Turbo wins 3, GPT-5.2 Vision wins 9, and 0 are tied. On the index average, GPT-5.2 Vision leads GPT-5.1 Turbo by 1.3 points (87.4 versus 86.1).

The price picture favours GPT-5.2 Vision. The context picture favours GPT-5.1 Turbo. 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-5.2 Vision for quality-sensitive work, and check whether its price holds at your expected volume before committing.

Choose GPT-5.1 Turbo if

You need the larger 2,000,000-token context window.
You need the larger 128,000-token output limit.

Choose GPT-5.2 Vision if

You want the higher average benchmark score in this index.
Unit cost matters and you want the cheaper blended price.

FAQ

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

On the index average, GPT-5.2 Vision leads GPT-5.1 Turbo by 1.3 points (87.4 versus 86.1). The better choice depends on price, context and your task. GPT-5.1 Turbo wins 3 benchmarks, GPT-5.2 Vision wins 9.

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

GPT-5.2 Vision is cheaper on a blended 3:1 basis at about $35.70 per million tokens, versus $36.85 for GPT-5.1 Turbo.

Which has the larger context window?

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

Are these models open weights?

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

Which should I choose for production?