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Model comparison

Claude Sonnet 4.6 vs GPT-5.6 Sol

Data verified

Head-to-head evidence from 18 shared benchmark results across 7 categories. Overall scores shown here use the public BenchAlign v5 ranking lane.

65.07/100
Margin
16.9pts
winning →
81.96/100
1 category wins4 category wins

Public leaderboard positions: Claude Sonnet 4.6 #32 (Supported); GPT-5.6 Sol #3 (Supported). Intervals and evidence labels describe ranking uncertainty, not a guarantee for a specific workload.

Evidence parity. Claude Sonnet 4.6 and GPT-5.6 Sol share 18 comparable benchmark results. 5 of 8 categories are comparable. 15 results are unique to Claude Sonnet 4.6; 28 to GPT-5.6 Sol.

Updated July 23, 2026
Shared results
18
Claude Sonnet 4.6 only
15
GPT-5.6 Sol only
28
Comparable categories
5 / 8

Pick GPT-5.6 Sol if you want the stronger benchmark profile. Claude Sonnet 4.6 only becomes the better choice if coding is the priority or you want the cheaper token bill.

Confidence note. This is a partial-evidence comparison with 18 shared benchmark results across 7 evidence categories; 5 of 8 categories currently have scoreable aggregates for both models. Treat the verdict as directional until coverage is more balanced.

Why this result

GPT-5.6 Sol is clearly ahead on the BenchAlign aggregate, 81.96 to 65.07. The gap is large enough that you do not need to squint at the spreadsheet to see the difference.

GPT-5.6 Sol's sharpest advantage is in mathematics, where it averages 87.5 against 26.4. The single biggest benchmark swing on the page is FrontierMath v2 (Tier 4), 8.300% to 83.000%. Claude Sonnet 4.6 does hit back in coding, so the answer changes if that is the part of the workload you care about most.

GPT-5.6 Sol is also the more expensive model on tokens at $5.00 input / $30.00 output per 1M tokens, versus $3.00 input / $15.00 output per 1M tokens for Claude Sonnet 4.6. That is roughly 2.0x on output cost alone. GPT-5.6 Sol is the reasoning model in the pair, while Claude Sonnet 4.6 is not. That usually helps on harder chain-of-thought-heavy tests, but it can also mean more latency and more token spend in real use. GPT-5.6 Sol gives you the larger context window at 1M, compared with 200K for Claude Sonnet 4.6.

Category breakdown

Exact category averages are shown below. Not measured means BenchLM does not have enough sourced public coverage for that model and category.

Category scores and score margins for Claude Sonnet 4.6 and GPT-5.6 Sol
CategoryClaude Sonnet 4.6ΔGPT-5.6 Sol
MathClaude Sonnet 4.626.4Margin→ 61.1GPT-5.6 Sol87.5
KnowledgeClaude Sonnet 4.666.0Margin→ 28.6GPT-5.6 Sol94.6
AgenticClaude Sonnet 4.665.2Margin→ 26.8GPT-5.6 Sol92.0
MultimodalClaude Sonnet 4.677.4Margin→ 5.6GPT-5.6 Sol83.0
CodingClaude Sonnet 4.669.1Margin← 4.5GPT-5.6 Sol64.6

Decisive benchmark drivers

The largest measured benchmark gaps in this matchup, with exact reported values.

More
A · Claude Sonnet 4.6B · GPT-5.6 Sol

  1. FrontierMath v2 (Tier 4)

    Math
    Source ↗
    A 8.300%B 83.000%
    Winner: GPT-5.6 SolΔ 74.7
    FrontierMath v2 (Tier 4): Claude Sonnet 4.6 scored 8.300%; GPT-5.6 Sol scored 83.000%. GPT-5.6 Sol wins this benchmark.

  2. FrontierMath v2 (Tiers 1-3)

    Math
    Source ↗
    A 32.400%B 89.000%
    Winner: GPT-5.6 SolΔ 56.6
    FrontierMath v2 (Tiers 1-3): Claude Sonnet 4.6 scored 32.400%; GPT-5.6 Sol scored 89.000%. GPT-5.6 Sol wins this benchmark.

  3. Terminal-Bench 2.0

    Agentic
    Source ↗
    A 59.1%B 91.9%
    Winner: GPT-5.6 SolΔ 32.8
    Terminal-Bench 2.0: Claude Sonnet 4.6 scored 59.1%; GPT-5.6 Sol scored 91.9%. GPT-5.6 Sol wins this benchmark.

  4. GPQA

    Knowledge
    Source ↗
    A 89.9%B 94.6%
    Winner: GPT-5.6 SolΔ 4.7
    GPQA: Claude Sonnet 4.6 scored 89.9%; GPT-5.6 Sol scored 94.6%. GPT-5.6 Sol wins this benchmark.

Operational comparison

Runtime and commercial metrics are compared only when both models have a complete sourced value.

MetricClaude Sonnet 4.6GPT-5.6 SolComparison
Input / output priceUSD per 1M tokensClaude Sonnet 4.6$3 input / $15 outputGPT-5.6 Sol$5 input / $30 outputClaude Sonnet 4.6 has the lower combined listed price.
Generation speedtokens per secondClaude Sonnet 4.644 tok/sGPT-5.6 SolNot availableA complete speed comparison is not available.
First-answer latencyseconds to first tokenClaude Sonnet 4.61.48 sGPT-5.6 SolNot availableA complete latency comparison is not available.
Context windowmaximum listed tokensClaude Sonnet 4.6200KGPT-5.6 Sol1MGPT-5.6 Sol lists the larger context window.

Benchmark Deep Dive

AgenticGPT-5.6 Sol wins
BenchmarkClaude Sonnet 4.6GPT-5.6 SolResult
Terminal-Bench 2.0Source 59.1%91.9%GPT-5.6 Sol leads
OSWorld-VerifiedSource 72.1%—Not comparable
Claw-EvalSource 67.8%—Not comparable
CyberGymSource 65.2%84.5%GPT-5.6 Sol leads
τ²-bench resultsSource 79.5%85.1%GPT-5.6 Sol leads
Gert LabsSource 62.92%—Not comparable
OSWorld 2.0Source 8.3%62.6%GPT-5.6 Sol leads
JobBenchSource 36.9%—Not comparable
BrowseCompSource —92.2%Not comparable
ExploitGymSource —33.7%Not comparable
ToolathlonSource —58%Not comparable
AA Agentic IndexSource —54.0%Not comparable
GDPval-AASource —61.8%Not comparable
GDPval-AASource —1736Not comparable
AA BriefcaseSource —1501Not comparable
AA ITBenchSource —56.2%Not comparable
AA Tau3 BankingSource —33.0%Not comparable
AA AutomationBenchSource —51.2%Not comparable
AA Harvey LABSource —87.2%Not comparable
terminalBenchHardSource —65.9%Not comparable
aaTerminalBench21Source —88%Not comparable
CodingClaude Sonnet 4.6 wins
BenchmarkClaude Sonnet 4.6GPT-5.6 SolResult
SWE-bench VerifiedSource 79.6%—Not comparable
SWE-RebenchSource 60.7%—Not comparable
React Native EvalsSource 80.6%—Not comparable
Vibe Code BenchSource 51.48%—Not comparable
cursorBench31Source 48.8%—Not comparable
AA-SciCodeSource 46.9%56.1%GPT-5.6 Sol leads
FrontierCode 1.1 MainSource 24.3%—Not comparable
SWE-bench ProSource —64.6%Not comparable
Terminal-Bench 2.0Source —91.9%Not comparable
deepSweSource —72.7%Not comparable
FrontierCode 1.1 ExtendedSource —60.6%Not comparable
cursorBench32Source —67.2%Not comparable
VulcanBench v3Source —87.0%Not comparable
AA Coding IndexSource —77.4%Not comparable
Reasoning
BenchmarkClaude Sonnet 4.6GPT-5.6 SolResult
AA-LCRSource 57.7%73.7%GPT-5.6 Sol leads
CritPtSource 0.9%32.3%GPT-5.6 Sol leads
ARC-AGI-3Source —7.8%Not comparable
GeneBench-ProSource —28.7%Not comparable
KnowledgeGPT-5.6 Sol wins
BenchmarkClaude Sonnet 4.6GPT-5.6 SolResult
GPQASource 89.9%94.6%GPT-5.6 Sol leads
SuperGPQASource 95%—Not comparable
MMLU-ProSource 79.2%—Not comparable
HLESource 49%—Not comparable
Artificial Analysis Intelligence IndexSource 35.9%58.9%GPT-5.6 Sol leads
AA-GPQA DiamondSource 79.9%94.1%GPT-5.6 Sol leads
AA-HLESource 13.2%47.2%GPT-5.6 Sol leads
AA-Omniscience IndexSource -2.9%21.7%GPT-5.6 Sol leads
AA-Omniscience AccuracySource 38.0%58.5%GPT-5.6 Sol leads
AA-Omniscience Hallucination RateSource 65.9%88.8%Claude Sonnet 4.6 leads
GPQA-DSource —94.6%Not comparable
HealthBench ProfessionalSource —60.5%Not comparable
HealthBench HardSource —33.1%Not comparable
MathGPT-5.6 Sol wins
BenchmarkClaude Sonnet 4.6GPT-5.6 SolResult
FrontierMath v2 (Tiers 1-3)Source 32.400%89.000%GPT-5.6 Sol leads
FrontierMath v2 (Tier 4)Source 8.300%83.000%GPT-5.6 Sol leads
FrontierMath (legacy)Source —89%Not comparable
MultimodalGPT-5.6 Sol wins
BenchmarkClaude Sonnet 4.6GPT-5.6 SolResult
CharXivSource 77.4%—Not comparable
AA-MMMU-ProSource 70.6%83.4%GPT-5.6 Sol leads
Design Arena WebsiteSource 1314—Not comparable
MMMU-ProSource —83%Not comparable
MMMU-Pro w/ PythonSource —84.6%Not comparable
Inst. Following
BenchmarkClaude Sonnet 4.6GPT-5.6 SolResult
AA-IFBenchSource 41.2%72.7%GPT-5.6 Sol leads
Frequently Asked Questions (6)

Which is better, Claude Sonnet 4.6 or GPT-5.6 Sol?

GPT-5.6 Sol is ahead on BenchLM's BenchAlign leaderboard, 81.96 to 65.07. The biggest single separator in this matchup is FrontierMath v2 (Tier 4), where the scores are 8.300% and 83.000%.

Which is better for knowledge tasks, Claude Sonnet 4.6 or GPT-5.6 Sol?

GPT-5.6 Sol has the edge for knowledge tasks in this comparison, averaging 94.6 versus 66. Inside this category, AA-HLE is the benchmark that creates the most daylight between them.

Which is better for coding, Claude Sonnet 4.6 or GPT-5.6 Sol?

Claude Sonnet 4.6 has the edge for coding in this comparison, averaging 69.1 versus 64.6. Inside this category, AA-SciCode is the benchmark that creates the most daylight between them.

Which is better for math, Claude Sonnet 4.6 or GPT-5.6 Sol?

GPT-5.6 Sol has the edge for math in this comparison, averaging 87.5 versus 26.4. Inside this category, FrontierMath v2 (Tier 4) is the benchmark that creates the most daylight between them.

Which is better for agentic tasks, Claude Sonnet 4.6 or GPT-5.6 Sol?

GPT-5.6 Sol has the edge for agentic tasks in this comparison, averaging 92 versus 65.2. Inside this category, OSWorld 2.0 is the benchmark that creates the most daylight between them.

Which is better for multimodal and grounded tasks, Claude Sonnet 4.6 or GPT-5.6 Sol?

GPT-5.6 Sol has the edge for multimodal and grounded tasks in this comparison, averaging 83 versus 77.4. Inside this category, AA-MMMU-Pro is the benchmark that creates the most daylight between them.

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