Head to head
GPT-6 Astra vs GPT-5.6 Sol
GPT-6 Astra from OpenAI against GPT-5.6 Sol from OpenAI — specification, price and every benchmark both makers have published, in one table.
At a glance
Benchmarks
GPT-6 Astra leads
GPT-6 Astra wins 2 of the 2 benchmarks both models report, GPT-5.6 Sol wins 0, by a wide margin. The average gap across shared tests is 11.0 points.
Price
GPT-5.6 Sol is cheaper
On a 3:1 input-to-output mix, GPT-5.6 Sol costs $8.00 per million tokens against $20.00 for GPT-6 Astra — about 2.5× less. Remember that a reasoning model bills its thinking as output, so cost per answer can diverge much further than cost per token.
What actually differs
- These two are closely matched on the specification side — same broad capabilities, same licensing posture. The decision comes down to the benchmark rows and the price.
Scorecard
Which is better at what
Maths, coding, reasoning and the rest — one line each, averaged over the benchmarks both models actually report.
| Category | GPT-6 Astra | GPT-5.6 Sol | Better at this |
|---|---|---|---|
| ReasoningGPQA Diamond | 96.0% | 94.6% | GPT-6 Astra+1.4 |
| MathsNeither model reports this | — | — | Not comparable |
| CodingTerminal-Bench 4.0 | 57.9% | 37.3% | GPT-6 Astra+20.6 |
| KnowledgeNeither model reports this | — | — | Not comparable |
| MultimodalNeither model reports this | — | — | Not comparable |
| Instruction followingNeither model reports this | — | — | Not comparable |
| Human preferenceNeither model reports this | — | — | Not comparable |
| Categories wonOut of 2 comparable | 2 | 0 | GPT-6 Astra |
Each category averages only the benchmarks every model here reports, so no one is credited for a test the other did not run. A category with no shared test is marked Not comparable rather than guessed at.
Side by side
GPT-6 Astra and GPT-5.6 Sol, row by row
| Attribute | GPT-6 AstraOpenAI | GPT-5.6 SolOpenAI |
|---|---|---|
| Specification | ||
| MakerWho built it | OpenAI | OpenAI |
| Released | 2026-09 | 2026-07 |
| Context windowHow much can go in at once | 1,050,000 tokens | 1,050,000 tokens |
| Max output | 128,000 tokens | 128,000 tokens |
| Input | Text, Image | Text, Image |
| ReasoningSpends extra tokens thinking before it answers | Yes | Yes |
| Tool calling | Yes | Yes |
| Knowledge cutoff | 2026-04 | Not reported |
| Licence | Proprietary | Proprietary |
| Open weightsCan you download and run it yourself | No | No |
| Price | ||
| Input priceUSD per million tokens in | $10.00 | $4.00 |
| Output priceUSD per million tokens out | $50.00 | $20.00 |
| Cached input | $1.00 | $0.40 |
| Blended 3:1A 3-in-to-1-out million-token mix — a fairer single number than input price alone | $20.00 | $8.00Cheapest |
| Published benchmarks | ||
| GPQA Diamond198 graduate-level physics, chemistry and biology questions written to be Google-proof. PhD holders in the matching field score about 65%. | ||
| SWE-bench ProA harder, contamination-resistant successor to SWE-bench Verified, drawn from commercial and copyleft repositories that were never public training data. | Not reported | |
| Terminal-Bench 2.1The 2.1 revision of the terminal agent benchmark. Scores on it are not comparable with Terminal-Bench 2.0 or 4.0 — the task set changed. | Not reported | |
| Terminal-Bench 4.0End-to-end tasks in a real terminal — install, build, debug, run — scored on whether the machine ends up in the required state. | ||
| Links | Full page | Full page |
| Row verified | 2026-10 | 2026-10 |
Where these numbers come from
Every score on this page is a published figure, taken from the model's own card, system card, technical report or release post, or from a public leaderboard. CorX Labs did not run these evaluations. Most are self-reported by the lab that built the model, which means they were produced under that lab's own choice of prompt, scaffold and number of attempts — so treat them as a starting point for a shortlist, not as a settled ranking.
A score someone other than the model's maker measured is marked Independent and names its measurer. Those are the stronger numbers on this page — an outside harness has no reason to flatter anyone — and there are not many of them.
Where a figure has not been published, the cell reads Not reported rather than an estimate. Nothing here is inferred, interpolated or guessed. Each model records the month its row was last checked. Full method and caveats.
Questions
GPT-6 Astra or GPT-5.6 Sol?
Is GPT-6 Astra better than GPT-5.6 Sol?
GPT-6 Astra wins 2 of the 2 benchmarks both models report, GPT-5.6 Sol wins 0, by a wide margin. The average gap across shared tests is 11.0 points.
Which is cheaper, GPT-6 Astra or GPT-5.6 Sol?
On a 3:1 input-to-output mix, GPT-5.6 Sol costs $8.00 per million tokens against $20.00 for GPT-6 Astra — about 2.5× less. Remember that a reasoning model bills its thinking as output, so cost per answer can diverge much further than cost per token.
What is the difference between GPT-6 Astra and GPT-5.6 Sol?
These two are closely matched on the specification side — same broad capabilities, same licensing posture. The decision comes down to the benchmark rows and the price.
