Noometry

Model comparison

GPT-5.6 Terra vs Nova 2 Lite

GPT-5.6 Terra is the stronger model overall, scoring 59.2 to 39.7 on the Noometry Index. Nova 2 Lite costs 5.3× less per token, which makes it the better buy when GPT-5.6 Terra's lead doesn't matter for your workload.

Last verified . 17 shared benchmarks.

GPT-5.6 Terra OpenAI

59.2

Rank #17 Confirmed

Nova 2 Lite Amazon

39.7

Rank #161 Confirmed

Summary

  • They share 17 benchmarks with published results for both. GPT-5.6 Terra scores higher in 9 categories and Nova 2 Lite in 0 categories; 9 gaps are clear of the uncertainty.
  • The widest gap is in math, where GPT-5.6 Terra leads 81.6 to 37.5.
  • Nova 2 Lite is cheaper at $0.30 / $2.50 per million input/output tokens, against $2 / $12 for GPT-5.6 Terra.
  • GPT-5.6 Terra accepts more context: 1.05M tokens versus 1M.

Side by side

GPT-5.6 TerraNova 2 Lite
ProviderOpenAIAmazon
Noometry Index59.239.7
Released2026-07-092025-12-01
WeightsProprietaryProprietary
Context window1.05M1M
Max output128K64K
Input $ / M tokens$2$0.30
Output $ / M tokens$12$2.50
Results tracked5219

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Category by category

Coding GPT-5.6 Terra leads

GPT-5.6 Terra: 57.7 (#19), Nova 2 Lite: 40.7 (#134)

BenchmarkGPT-5.6 TerraNova 2 Lite
LMArena Coding14841385
DeepSWE69.6%—
FrontierCode41.3%—
CursorBench41.3%—
LMArena WebDev1522—
SciCode55%—
WeirdML78.3%—
ALE-Bench1,951—

Agentic & Tool Use GPT-5.6 Terra leads

GPT-5.6 Terra: 40.1 (#25), Nova 2 Lite: 24.1 (#121)

BenchmarkGPT-5.6 TerraNova 2 Lite
APEX-Agents58.2%—
Berkeley Function Calling Leaderboard—27.1%
BALROG53.2%—
GDP.pdf24.7%—
Vending-Bench 27,343—

Reasoning GPT-5.6 Terra leads

GPT-5.6 Terra: 60.7 (#21), Nova 2 Lite: 27.5 (#118)

BenchmarkGPT-5.6 TerraNova 2 Lite
LMArena Hard Prompts14681364
ARC-AGI-283.9%—
SimpleBench48.9%—
Kagi LLM Benchmark51.3%—
NYT Connections (extended)78.4%—
ARC-AGI-196.5%—
CritPt30%—
Chess Puzzles54%—
Mystery Game Puzzles35%—
DTBench93.3%—
LMCA55%—
Surface Evolver Bench83.8%—
Epoch Capabilities Index159.62—

Math GPT-5.6 Terra leads

GPT-5.6 Terra: 81.6 (#12), Nova 2 Lite: 37.5 (#156)

BenchmarkGPT-5.6 TerraNova 2 Lite
LMArena Math14661359
FrontierMath (Tiers 1-3)86%—
FrontierMath Tier 470.7%—
OTIS Mock AIME 2024-202599.7%—
ProofBench74%—

Knowledge GPT-5.6 Terra leads

GPT-5.6 Terra: 61.2 (#30), Nova 2 Lite: 43.0 (#94)

BenchmarkGPT-5.6 TerraNova 2 Lite
LMArena Expert14921358
GPQA Diamond93.3%—
SimpleQA Verified43.2%—
Vectara Hallucination Rate—5.1%

Multimodal Not comparable

GPT-5.6 Terra: 47.3 (#11), Nova 2 Lite: —

BenchmarkGPT-5.6 TerraNova 2 Lite
LMArena Vision1271—
Blueprint-Bench 230.8%—
Furniture Assembly54.2%—
LMArena Document1472—

Multilingual GPT-5.6 Terra leads

GPT-5.6 Terra: 54.4 (#44), Nova 2 Lite: 47.1 (#153)

BenchmarkGPT-5.6 TerraNova 2 Lite
LMArena Non-English14391337
LMArena Chinese15131364
LMArena French14711381
LMArena German14601343
LMArena Japanese14571271
LMArena Korean14251284
LMArena Russian14501343
LMArena Spanish14481373

Instruction Following GPT-5.6 Terra leads

GPT-5.6 Terra: 76.4 (#40), Nova 2 Lite: 70.5 (#161)

BenchmarkGPT-5.6 TerraNova 2 Lite
LMArena Instruction Following14541335

Long Context GPT-5.6 Terra leads

GPT-5.6 Terra: 44.4 (#68), Nova 2 Lite: 40.6 (#150)

BenchmarkGPT-5.6 TerraNova 2 Lite
LMArena Longer Query14511335

Writing & Preference GPT-5.6 Terra leads

GPT-5.6 Terra: 70.2 (#23), Nova 2 Lite: 53.9 (#154)

BenchmarkGPT-5.6 TerraNova 2 Lite
LMArena Text14471362
LMArena Creative Writing14101291
LMArena Multi-Turn14491338
EQ-Bench Creative Writing1855—
EQ-Bench 41234—

Frequently asked questions

Is GPT-5.6 Terra better than Nova 2 Lite?

GPT-5.6 Terra is the stronger model overall, scoring 59.2 to 39.7 on the Noometry Index. Nova 2 Lite costs 5.3× less per token, which makes it the better buy when GPT-5.6 Terra's lead doesn't matter for your workload.

Which is cheaper, GPT-5.6 Terra or Nova 2 Lite?

Nova 2 Lite is cheaper. It lists at $0.30 per million input tokens and $2.50 per million output tokens; GPT-5.6 Terra lists at $2 and $12.

Is GPT-5.6 Terra or Nova 2 Lite better for coding?

GPT-5.6 Terra scores higher on coding benchmarks: 57.7 versus 40.7 in the Noometry coding category.

Which has the bigger context window?

GPT-5.6 Terra does, with 1.05M tokens against 1M.

How many benchmarks do GPT-5.6 Terra and Nova 2 Lite share?

17 benchmarks have published results for both models. GPT-5.6 Terra has 52 scored results on Noometry and Nova 2 Lite has 19.

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