Cheaper GPT-6 Sol beats flagship Astra on a writing benchmark
On one writing benchmark at each model's deepest effort setting, Sol scores 2182 Elo versus Astra's 2013 while costing an eighth as much and running three times faster.
GPT-6 Astra is OpenAI's flagship. GPT-6 Sol is the cheaper model positioned below it. On our writing benchmark, at each model's deepest effort setting: Sol scores 2182 Elo. Astra scores 2013. Sol costs $0.11 a script. Astra costs $0.85. Sol takes 171 seconds. Astra takes 526. The cheap model wins by 169 Elo while costing an eighth as much and running three times faster. Every effort setting of Sol we tested beats every effort setting of Astra. Astra's default setting sits at 1843, which is below where GPT-5.6 Sol was. this measures writing YouTube scripts in one editorial voice. Astra is built for agentic and engineering work, and nothing here says it is bad at those. It does say that paying the flagship price for prose is the wrong call. Check the cheap model against your own task before you assume the expensive one is better.
This post quotes another post: “Third-party benchmark: GPT-6 Sol outscores Astra on writing”