GPT-6 Astra (Max) vs gpt-oss-20b (High)
Which is better for the money: GPT-6 Astra (Max) by OpenAI or gpt-oss-20b (High) by OpenAI? Intelligence, total benchmark cost, and end-to-end time from Artificial Analysis & other sources, snapshot 2026-10-26.
Trade-off
Verdict
Depends on your budget
GPT-6 Astra (Max) scores 43.7 points higher (52.7 vs 9.0) but costs 185× as much to run the benchmark ($5324 vs $28.8; flagship vs budget cost classes). They are not alternatives at one budget: pick GPT-6 Astra (Max) when you need intelligence above 9.0, and gpt-oss-20b (High) when 9.0 is enough.
| Metric | GPT-6 Astra (Max) | gpt-oss-20b (High) | Difference |
|---|---|---|---|
| Intelligence (higher is better) | 52.7 | 9.0 | −82.9% gpt-oss-20b (High) is 82.9% less intelligent |
| Total AA cost (lower is better) | $5,324.10 | $28.81 | −99.5% gpt-oss-20b (High) is 99.5% cheaper |
| End-to-end time (lower is better) | 280.51s | 14.95s | −94.7% gpt-oss-20b (High) is 94.7% faster |
| Price per 1M tokens (in / out) | $10.0 / $50.0 | $0.05 / $0.22 | |
| Input modalities | Text, Image | Text |
gpt-oss-20b (High) vs GPT-6 Astra (Max): 82.9% less intelligence, 99.5% less cost to run the AA benchmark, and 94.7% faster end-to-end.
Today's Pareto frontier
Against the frontier
- GPT-6 Astra (Max) is off the frontier: at the same or lower cost, Claude Opus 5.5 (Xhigh, Default Fallback) scores 56.00 for $4057.
- gpt-oss-20b (High) is off the frontier: at the same or lower cost, GPT-6 Luna (Low) scores 21.50 for $10.6.
GPT-6 Astra (Max)gpt-oss-20b (High)Today's Pareto frontierOpen-weights frontierEvery other model
Matchup
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Accept: text/markdown or ?format=md returns this page as Markdown. JSON: /api/v1/compare/gpt-6-astra/gpt-oss-20b · Markdown: /api/v1/compare/gpt-6-astra/gpt-oss-20b?format=md · llms.txt · agent skill