Head to head: OpenAI: GPT-5 Pro vs gpt-oss-20b
OpenAI: GPT-5 Pro vs gpt-oss-20b
By Ryan Merket · Published
This wasn’t a nail-biter. GPT-5 Pro separated itself on factual recall, turning a small six-task slate into a statistically clear win over gpt-oss-20b.
On this matchup, **GPT-5 Pro was the only model that consistently converted easy factual questions into points**. It finished with a 40.0 aggregate score to gpt-oss-20b’s 10.0, and the result clears the bar for a real verdict: **94% confidence in GPT-5 Pro’s win**. The shape of the result matters. GPT-5 Pro took **three outright wins**, all on **SimpleQA exact-match** items: **two Politics questions and one Geography question** where it was correct and gpt-oss-20b was not. That’s not stylistic preference or judge-model ambiguity; those are clean benchmark misses by Model B. The rest of the slate did nothing to rescue gpt-oss-20b. There were **three ties**, but they’re not impressive ties: one Politics item where both models were correct, plus **Science and technology** and **Sports** questions where **both models were wrong**. In other words, gpt-oss-20b never produced a category win, and two of the ties came from shared failure rather than matched strength. So the editorial read is straightforward: **GPT-5 Pro was simply more reliable on factual QA here**, especially in politics and geography, while gpt-oss-20b failed to create any counterweight anywhere on the board. **Final call: GPT-5 Pro is the clear winner.**
SimpleQA · Politics
What was P. V. Sanjay Kumar's position just before being appointed as a judge of the Supreme Court of India? Answer concisely, then give ONLY the short factual answer on the last line as: Final answer: <answer>
Scored against the benchmark's reference answer (exact match): Model A was correct, Model B was incorrect.
SimpleQA · Politics
Who was the 18th Chief Minister of Karnataka? Answer concisely, then give ONLY the short factual answer on the last line as: Final answer: <answer>
Scored against the benchmark's reference answer (exact match): Model A was correct, Model B was incorrect.
SimpleQA · Geography
On what month, day, and year was the cave known as Ursa Minor first discovered in Sequoia National Park, California, United States? Answer concisely, then give ONLY the short factual answer on the last line as: Final answer: <answer>
Scored against the benchmark's reference answer (exact match): Model A was correct, Model B was incorrect.
SimpleQA · Politics
What is the initial name of the political party that Emmanuel Macron founded? Answer concisely, then give ONLY the short factual answer on the last line as: Final answer: <answer>
Scored against the benchmark's reference answer (exact match): Model A was correct, Model B was correct.
SimpleQA · Science and technology
In which year did Pramod Kale (an Indian engineer) win the Shri Hari Om Ashram Prerit Vikram Sarabhai Award for System Analysis and Management Problems? Answer concisely, then give ONLY the short factual answer on the last line as: Final answer: <answer>
Scored against the benchmark's reference answer (exact match): Model A was incorrect, Model B was incorrect.
SimpleQA · Sports
On what day, month, and year did the first Bennett Cup auto race, for a prize sponsored by New York Herald publisher James Gordon Bennett Jr., begin as five entrants departed from the Parc de Saint-Cloud, near Paris, on a 566-kilometer (352 miles) trip to Lyon? Answer concisely, then give ONLY the short factual answer on the last line as: Final answer: <answer>
Scored against the benchmark's reference answer (exact match): Model A was incorrect, Model B was incorrect.
Matchup powered by OpenRouter.