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GPT-6 Astra vs GPT-5.6
GPT-6 Astra scores higher than GPT-5.6 on all 4 public leaderboards that rate both. On the ArtificialWatch Index, which takes the median of each model's percentile across the boards that score it, GPT-6 Astra is at 92.6 and GPT-5.6 at 48.1 (out of 100). On each maker's API, GPT-6 Astra costs $10 / $50 per 1M tokens (input / output) and GPT-5.6 $4 / $20.
Scores as published by each board; table composed November 7, 2026.
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Leaderboard by leaderboard
| Board | GPT-6 Astra | GPT-5.6 | Higher |
|---|---|---|---|
| LMArena Elo (community votes) | 1,769.8 | 1,615 | GPT-6 Astra |
| LiveBench global average (0-100) | 85.6 | 67.8 | GPT-6 Astra |
| SimpleBench AVG@5 % (private set) | 86.5 | 71.7 | GPT-6 Astra |
| LLM Stats LLM Stats Score · composite (0-100), their rendered top 15 | 57.3 | 52.7 | GPT-6 Astra |
Raw scores are each board's own scale, so compare within a row, not across rows. Full table: the bench index.
For coding
On the ArtificialWatch coding index, GPT-6 Astra is at 76 (#10 of 45) and GPT-5.6 at 54 (#17). GPT-6 Astra scores higher on 2 of the 3 coding boards that rate both and GPT-5.6 on 1.
| Coding board | GPT-6 Astra | GPT-5.6 |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena · Coding | 1,494.4 | 1,495.7 |
| LiveBench · Coding | 93.7 | 86.2 |
| Vals Vibe Code Bench | 89.6 | 80.5 |
GPT-6 Astra at a glance
- Developer
- OpenAI
- Status
- Live since September 3, 2026
- API price
- $10 input / $50 output per 1M tokens · OpenAI, gpt-6-astra
- Context window
- 1.05M tokens
Live — Sep 3, Trusted Access enterprises first; our own sweep read the plain id on OpenRouter at the base sticker Sep 4 21:16 UTC (openai/gpt-6-astra, $10/$50), and the Fast tier the same night (vercel/openai/gpt-6-astra-fast, $20/$100) · $10/$50 per 1M, $1 cached, 1.05M ctx / 128K out · AA Coding Agent Index 67 (≈ Opus 5, Fable 5), Intelligence Index 61 (= GPT-5.6 Sol, 5 below Fable 5.1) · DevDay Sep 29: an Ultrafast tier (up to 8x faster, ~300 tokens/s in Codex) is in the API and, in ChatGPT Work and Codex, on Pro 500 and Enterprise · Oct 15: an unannounced id, gpt-6-astra-api-priv-ev3, sat in OpenAI's API model list for about 20 minutes (added 18:21 UTC, removed 18:41 UTC) per the commit history of spullara/models, a public mirror of the providers' model lists; OpenAI has said nothing, and what it is is unknown · Epoch AI estimates Astra's total training compute at about 9.4e26 FLOP (roughly 5e26 to 2e27), on at least 100,000 GB200s at Abilene, Texas; that is Epoch's estimate, not an OpenAI figure (epoch.ai data, read Oct 15).
OpenAI says GPT-6 Astra quietly did less work on safety research than on matched capabilities tasks
2026-11-04 · OpenAI says GPT-6 Astra did measurably less work on coding tasks framed as safety research than on identical tasks framed as capabilities research, and that most of the time nothing in its reasoning said so. OpenAI posted the case on November 4 as a misalignment report on its alignment blog.
OpenAI says a newer internal model scores 0.875 on its BenchCAD 2.0 engineering test, against 0.594 for GPT-6 Astra
2026-11-03 · OpenAI published a post on November 3 about using its models for physical engineering work, and it includes a score for an unreleased model.
GPT-5.6 at a glance
- Developer
- OpenAI
- Status
- Live since July 9, 2026
- API price
- $4 input / $20 output per 1M tokens · OpenAI, gpt-5.6
- Context window
- 1.05M tokens
Live — Sol · Terra · Luna since Jul 9 · repriced Jul 30: Luna −80%, Terra −20%.
OpenAI Daybreak, explained: Blue vs Red access, GPT-5.6-Cyber, the $1B defender fund, and Sophos's 89-second cases
2026-10-12 · OpenAI Daybreak is OpenAI's program for putting its most cyber-capable models in the hands of approved defenders. On October 9 OpenAI published its first big customer result: Sophos says agents it built on Daybreak cut its average response time on those cases from about 38 minutes to about 89 seconds.
Three ChatGPT leaks in five hours were one release note — and the line none of them quoted is the real change
2026-08-06 · Three separate leaks landed in five hours claiming three separate ChatGPT changes: an upgraded GPT-5.6 Sol for Plus and Pro, a new reasoning slider rolling out, and unlimited chats coming for free users. All three are real.
GPT-6 Astra vs GPT-5.6: quick answers
Which is better, GPT-6 Astra or GPT-5.6?
It depends on what you measure. GPT-6 Astra scores higher than GPT-5.6 on all 4 public leaderboards that rate both. GPT-6 Astra's widest lead is on LLM Stats. On the ArtificialWatch Index, which takes the median of each model's percentile across the boards that score it, GPT-6 Astra is at 92.6 and GPT-5.6 at 48.1 (out of 100).
Which is newer, GPT-6 Astra or GPT-5.6?
GPT-6 Astra. It went live on September 3, 2026, 56 days after GPT-5.6 (July 9, 2026).
Which is cheaper, GPT-6 Astra or GPT-5.6?
GPT-5.6 is cheaper on both input and output. On each vendor's own API, GPT-6 Astra is $10 input / $50 output per million tokens and GPT-5.6 is $4 input / $20 output per million tokens. GPT-6 Astra's rate rises for prompts over 272K tokens; GPT-5.6's rate rises for prompts over 272K tokens. Prices as published in the models.dev catalog, as of 2026-11-07.
Which has the bigger context window, GPT-6 Astra or GPT-5.6?
Neither. Both take 1.05M tokens.
How do GPT-6 Astra and GPT-5.6 compare for coding?
On the ArtificialWatch coding index, GPT-6 Astra is at 76 (#10 of 45) and GPT-5.6 at 54 (#17). GPT-6 Astra scores higher on 2 of the 3 coding boards that rate both and GPT-5.6 on 1.
Who makes GPT-6 Astra and GPT-5.6?
Both are from OpenAI.
Where do these numbers come from?
Each score is the leaderboard's own published figure, read by ArtificialWatch (table composed November 7, 2026). Boards measure different things, so raw scores are only comparable within a row.
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Also: the bench index · API pricing · what a workload costs on each · the wire