Model Comparison
GPT-6 Sol vs GPT-6 Astra
GPT-6 Sol (max) leads GPT-6 Astra (max) by 194 Elo, and their 95% ranges sit 112 Elo apart. Among 78 models, each ranked by its best configuration, GPT-6 Sol is #4 and GPT-6 Astra is #11. Cost per script: $0.126 for GPT-6 Sol (max) and $1.15 for GPT-6 Astra (max).
Last updated , from board data generated at 01:13 UTC.
Picks and Verdict
PickGPT-6 Sol
GPT-6 Sol (max)
Pick GPT-6 Sol (max) as the default, the best setting of the #4 model of 78 at $0.126 a script, cheaper than either Astra setting.
PickGPT-6 Astra
GPT-6 Astra (max)
Pick GPT-6 Astra (max) when hitting the target length matters most, since its 98.3 on Length Adherence beats the 92.9 of Sol's best.
The cheaper GPT-6 model wins at both level names they share. Among 78 models, each ranked by its best setting, GPT-6 Sol is the #4 model and GPT-6 Astra the #11 model. At max, Sol sits 194 Elo ahead, and the two 95% ranges are 112 Elo apart, which is strong evidence for the order. At medium, Sol leads again with separate ranges. Sol's medium setting is the bigger problem for Astra. GPT-6 Sol (medium), at $0.056 a script and under a minute, rates 38 Elo above Astra's best inside overlapping ranges, while Astra at max takes about nine minutes and costs more than 20 times as much. Astra gains more from extra thinking, 182 Elo from medium to max against 156 for Sol, and still stays lower. It does win on length and visual cues: GPT-6 Astra (max) scores more than five points higher on Length Adherence and about two higher on cues. If those drive your edit, fair enough. My call is Sol at max for $0.126, with medium as the budget option.
Disclosure: both models come from the same lab as one of the four judges, GPT-6.1 Sol. The other judges sit outside that lab, so neither is scored by its own lab alone (how the panel works). The judge analysis measures how much each judge favors its own lab.
How to Read the Writing Score, Writing Elo and 95% Ranges
Writing Score and Writing Elo. The Writing Score (0 to 100) is the weighted average of the nine metric scores: seven from the judges, Length Adherence from code and the Slop Score half from each. The Writing Elo is a rating from pairwise comparisons: on each script, each configuration's average across its drafts is compared with every other configuration's, and gaps within the draft-to-draft variation count as draws. Elo rewards winning often, so the two can put configurations in a different order.
Elo ranges. Each 95% range shows how far a configuration's Elo could move if the drafts had come out slightly differently. It comes from resampling every configuration's recorded draft scores on each reference script and ranking again. Comparing two separate ranges does not test the Elo gap between them: ranges far apart are strong evidence for the order, and overlapping ranges do not mean a tie. The reference scripts stay fixed, so the ranges say nothing about new scripts. The methodology page has the full description.
All Thinking Levels of Both Models
Every ranked configuration of GPT-6 Sol and GPT-6 Astra, scored on the same 10 scripts by the same four judges.
- Each row is one configuration: the model at one thinking level. The dot is its Writing Elo, a rating from pairwise comparisons of the scores on each script, and the bar is its 95% range: how far that Elo could move if the drafts had come out slightly differently.
- When two bars overlap, the board cannot order those two configurations. Bars far apart are strong evidence for the order.
- The table under the chart lists the same configurations in the same order and adds the Writing Score (the 0 to 100 consensus of the judges and code), cost, time and configuration rank (the place among all configurations on the board).
Shaded rows are the configurations chosen for the metric comparison below.
| Configuration | Writing Elo | 95% Range | Writing Score | Cost / Script | Time / Script | Configuration Rank |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| GPT-6 Sol (max) | 2379 | 2335 to 2424 | 83.5 | $0.126 | 2.5 min | #8 |
| GPT-6 Sol (medium) | 2223 | 2180 to 2265 | 82.5 | $0.056 | 0.8 min | #14 |
| GPT-6 Astra (max) | 2185 | 2145 to 2223 | 82.3 | $1.15 | 9.2 min | #21 |
| GPT-6 Astra (medium) | 2003 | 1968 to 2035 | 80.7 | $0.262 | 1.5 min | #32 |
Cost is one script at the API list price of the route used, uncached and without judging. Time is the average for one accepted script, retries included.
Computed Findings Across Thinking Levels
Each finding is computed from the configurations above. Where two 95% ranges overlap, the board cannot order those two configurations.
- Best Configurations Head to Head. GPT-6 Sol (max) leads GPT-6 Astra (max) by 194 Elo, and their 95% ranges do not overlap (2335 to 2424 against 2145 to 2223), which is strong evidence for that order.
- Lowest Thinking Levels Head to Head. At their lowest thinking levels, GPT-6 Sol (medium) at Elo 2223 and $0.056 per script leads GPT-6 Astra (medium) at Elo 2003 and $0.262 per script by 220 Elo. Their 95% ranges do not overlap.
- Same Level Name, Side by Side. GPT-6 Sol has the higher Writing Elo at every level name both models use: medium and max. The 95% ranges do not overlap at any of them. Level names come from each provider, so the same name does not promise the same reasoning budget.
- Cheapest GPT-6 Sol Configuration Above GPT-6 Astra's Best. The cheapest GPT-6 Sol configuration with a higher Writing Elo than GPT-6 Astra (max), at Elo 2185 and $1.15 per script, is GPT-6 Sol (medium), at Elo 2223 and $0.056 per script. Their 95% ranges overlap, so the board cannot separate them. It costs less than the configuration it beats.
- Lowest to Highest Thinking Level. GPT-6 Sol moves +156 Elo from medium to max, at about 2.3 times the cost per script. GPT-6 Astra moves +182 Elo from medium to max, at about 4.4 times the cost per script.
Writing Elo at Each Shared Level Name
| Level | GPT-6 Sol | GPT-6 Astra | Gap | 95% Ranges |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| medium | 2223 | 2003 | +220 | Separate |
| max | 2379 | 2185 | +194 | Separate |
Gap is GPT-6 Sol minus GPT-6 Astra at the same level name, using each model's highest-rated configuration at that level.
Two Chosen Configurations Compared
Pick one configuration of each model to compare their metric scores, consistency across drafts and per-script scores. Each menu starts on the model's best configuration.
Scores by Metric
GPT-6 Sol (max) scores higher on six of the nine metrics and GPT-6 Astra (max) on three. Weighted by each metric's share of the Writing Score, YouTube Best Practices does the most to put GPT-6 Sol (max) ahead, with a 4.1-point lead on that metric. The weight beside each metric is its share of the Writing Score.
Consistency Across Drafts
| GPT-6 Sol (max) | GPT-6 Astra (max) | |
|---|---|---|
| Score spread across drafts (±) | 1.27 | 1.87 |
| Lowest script score | 82.0 Script 10 | 80.6 Script 1 |
| Highest script score | 85.3 Script 9 | 85.8 Script 9 |
| Range across scripts | 3.3 | 5.2 |
Spread is how much the Writing Score moves between a configuration's drafts, and lower is steadier. Green marks the better number in each row.
Scores by Script
Writing Score on each reference script. Gap is GPT-6 Sol (max) minus GPT-6 Astra (max), and the higher score is in bold.
| Script | GPT-6 Sol (max) | GPT-6 Astra (max) | Gap |
|---|---|---|---|
| Script 1 opinion / warning explainer | 83.0 | 80.6 | +2.4 |
| Script 2 news-analysis / skeptical explainer | 83.7 | 82.0 | +1.7 |
| Script 3 personal roadmap / opinion | 84.3 | 84.3 | 0.0 |
| Script 4 short explainer | 83.3 | 82.7 | +0.6 |
| Script 5 news-analysis / opinion explainer | 83.4 | 81.3 | +2.1 |
| Script 6 founder announcement / personal origin story | 84.8 | 83.6 | +1.2 |
| Script 7 personal technical walkthrough / agentic workflow case study | 82.7 | 81.6 | +1.1 |
| Script 8 product release announcement / personal observation | 82.8 | 80.6 | +2.2 |
| Script 9 career guide / hiring analysis | 85.3 | 85.8 | -0.5 |
| Script 10 engineering process walkthrough / presentation adaptation | 82.0 | 80.7 | +1.3 |
Scorecards and Thinking Pages
Each configuration name in the table above opens its own scorecard.
Compare With Another Model
Pick a second model. A pair with its own written match-up opens that page, and any other pair opens in the comparison tool.
Nearby Match-Ups by Best Writing Elo
Every configuration wrote five drafts for each of the same 10 briefs, from the same prompt. Generation was closed-book, with the prompt as the only source and no web search or other tools. Each judge scores every draft once: Claude Opus 5.5 at medium effort through the Claude Code subscription, GPT-6.1 Sol at medium reasoning through the Codex CLI, GLM 5.3 Flash through OpenRouter, and Jev 1.13, a typed judge from TypeSafe that answers each metric as a multiple-choice question. The channel's finished script is their reference for the voice, and it gets no score on the board itself.
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