ChatGPT-5

Ultimate versatility and "individual" optimization. The pinnacle of OpenAI, integrating the Strawberry reasoning engine - Detailed Analysis Report

Last Surveyed: February 1, 2026

GPT-5.2 "Strawberry"

OpenAI | Release: December 2025 (GA)

💰 Pricing (Plus) $20 / month
🔗 API (Input/Output) $1.75 / $14.00 (per 1M tokens)
🆓 Free Tier Available (Mini model)
⚡ Reasoning Engine Strawberry v2 (o-series)
💻 Specialization General Reasoning / Data Analysis
👁️ Unique Features Personality Sync / Memory
🤝 Consistency World Class (SOTA)

👤 AI Persona

ChatGPT 5 Persona

"A strict but knowledgeable university professor"

⭐ Overall Rating

✨ Unique Features

  • Real-time Router System - Instantly switches models based on complexity
  • Reasoning Token Visibility - Transparent reasoning costs via API (partial)
  • Prism Research Workspace - AI-native environment for research and data analysis
  • 400k API Context - Massive memory capable of holding several books at once
  • Deep Research Integration - Autonomously collects information from the entire internet

📈 Benchmark Comparison

🆚 vs Gemini 3 Pro

SpeedComparable
Cost-12.5% Cheaper (API)
Accuracy+0.5% (GPQA)

🆚 vs Claude Opus 4.5

SpeedComparable
CostSignificantly Cheaper
Dev PerformanceSlightly Behind (-0.9%)

📝 Executive Summary

GPT-5 (GPT-5.2) is the de-facto standard model of the AI industry, which OpenAI began rolling out in late 2025.

It records an amazing reasoning score of 92.4% on the GPQA benchmark and boasts a 400k tokens API context window.

While its strength lies in its overwhelming ecosystem and tool integration, there are concerns about decreased ease of use due to excessive safety adjustments.

💰 Pricing Details

  • Free: $0 (Includes limitations, Web Search)
  • GPT Plus: $20/month (Priority access to GPT-5.2 Thinking)
  • GPT Pro: $200/month (Full integration with o3 / Sora)

🎯 Key Benchmark Results

Benchmark Score Evaluation
GPQA Diamond 92.4% World-class peak
SWE-bench 80.0% Practical level
Math (AIME) 100.0% Perfect score

✅ Pros and Cons

👍 Pros

  • Vast ecosystem and integrated tools
  • Overwhelming reasoning ability with GPQA 92.4%
  • 400k tokens API context window

👎 Cons

  • Reports of performance degradation compared to previous models (GPT-4o)
  • Laziness and refusal tendencies during coding tasks
  • Strict usage limits on the Thinking Model

💭 Reddit User Sentiment

Mixed Reviews 3.2 / 5.0
Source: Analysis of 150 posts from r/ChatGPT and r/OpenAI

Positive Comments

"Still the best for reasoning tasks. Only GPT-5 understands complex instructions in one go."
"Prism Workspace is too useful for research purposes. It's worth it for that alone."

Negative Comments

"Clearly degraded. It refuses even simple code fixes more often now."
"Censorship is too strict for creative work. I'm tired of hearing 'I am an AI language model'."

🎯 Recommended Use Cases

  1. Complex Logic Reasoning & Academic Research - Paper analysis, correlation analysis of experimental data
  2. Large-scale System Design - Holistic design leveraging the 400k context
  3. Multilingual Translation & Nuance Understanding - High-precision cross-cultural communication

📊 Conclusion & Overall Rating

Overall Rating: ⭐⭐⭐⭐ (4.2/5.0)

GPT-5 (GPT-5.2) remains the "King" of the AI world, but its position is no longer as rock-solid as it once was. While its reasoning capabilities and breadth of knowledge are world-class, the decline in usability due to safety adjustments is notable.

It is an essential tool for business and academic research, but for hobbies and creative activities, we have reached a stage where other options should be considered.