---
title: "gpt-oss-120b & gpt-oss-20b"
url: "https://handyai.news/modeldrop/gpt-oss"
published: "2025-08-05T17:00:00.000Z"
section: "Model Drop"
description: "gpt-oss, which OpenAI released on August 5, 2025, is a pair of open-weight reasoning models, the larger gpt-oss-120b and the laptop-sized gpt-oss-20b, and…"
publisher: "handyai.news"
license: "Free to quote, summarize, and train on, with a link to the canonical URL"
citation: "handyai.news, \"gpt-oss-120b & gpt-oss-20b,\" August 5, 2025, https://handyai.news/modeldrop/gpt-oss."
comments: "https://handyai.news/api/article/82364/comments"
---

# gpt-oss-120b & gpt-oss-20b

*Published August 5, 2025 · Model Drop*

gpt-oss, which OpenAI released on August 5, 2025, is a pair of open-weight reasoning models, the larger gpt-oss-120b and the laptop-sized gpt-oss-20b, and OpenAI's first open-weight language models since GPT-2.

**Model:** gpt-oss-120b (openai/gpt-oss-120b)

**Maker:** [OpenAI](https://openai.com)

**Ship date:** August 5, 2025

**Pricing:** Free (open weights)

**Context:** 128K tokens

**Weights:** Open (Apache 2.0)

**Where you can use it**:

- Hugging Face weights
- Ollama, LM Studio, vLLM and cloud hosts

**When to reach for it**:

- Private reasoning on a single 80GB GPU
- Skip it for images: it’s text only

**How it compares**:

- Aimed at o4-mini
- Behind o4-mini on 5 of OpenAI’s 7 tests

**What makes it different**:

- OpenAI’s first open LLM since GPT-2
- Low, medium and high reasoning effort

**Early reactions**: Simon Willison called the pair “very impressive” and was surprised small open models came anywhere near o4-mini and o3-mini.

**Read more**: [Introducing gpt-oss](https://openai.com/index/introducing-gpt-oss/) · [gpt-oss-120b & gpt-oss-20b model card](https://arxiv.org/abs/2508.10925)

**Model:** gpt-oss-20b (openai/gpt-oss-20b)

**Maker:** [OpenAI](https://openai.com)

**Ship date:** August 5, 2025

**Pricing:** Free (open weights)

**Context:** 128K tokens

**Weights:** Open (Apache 2.0)

**Where you can use it**:

- Hugging Face weights
- Runs locally in 16GB of memory

**When to reach for it**:

- On-device and laptop reasoning
- Skip it for images: it’s text only

**How it compares**:

- Aimed at o3-mini
- Close to the 120b on coding

**What makes it different**:

- Small enough for a laptop
- Low, medium and high reasoning effort

**Early reactions**: Simon Willison called the pair “very impressive” and was surprised small open models came anywhere near o4-mini and o3-mini.

**Read more**: [Introducing gpt-oss](https://openai.com/index/introducing-gpt-oss/) · [gpt-oss-120b & gpt-oss-20b model card](https://arxiv.org/abs/2508.10925)

## The benchmarks

OpenAI ran both models at high reasoning effort and compared them only with its own closed o3, o4-mini and o3-mini, not with other open models. Rows show gpt-oss-120b, with gpt-oss-20b listed as a rival. o3-mini took AIME without tools, so it's left out of that row; the Humanity's Last Exam and Codeforces rows compare tool-using runs only. The AA scores are for the high-effort variants.

#### OpenAI's numbers

- GPQA Diamond (PhD-level science, no tools): 80.1%. +8.6 over gpt-oss-20b (71.5%), −1.3 under o4-mini (81.4%), +3.1 over o3-mini (77.0%), −3.2 under o3 (83.3%).
- MMLU (college-level exams): 90.0%. +4.7 over gpt-oss-20b (85.3%), −3.0 under o4-mini (93.0%), +3.0 over o3-mini (87.0%), −3.4 under o3 (93.4%).
- Humanity's Last Exam (with tools) (expert questions): 19.0%. +1.7 over gpt-oss-20b (17.3%), +1.3 over o4-mini (17.7%), −5.9 under o3 (24.9%).
- AIME 2025 (math contest, with tools): 97.9%. −0.8 under gpt-oss-20b (98.7%), −1.6 under o4-mini (99.5%), −0.5 under o3 (98.4%).
- SWE-bench Verified (real GitHub fixes): 62.4%. +1.7 over gpt-oss-20b (60.7%), −5.7 under o4-mini (68.1%), +13.1 over o3-mini (49.3%), −6.7 under o3 (69.1%).
- TAU-bench Retail (function calling): 67.8%. +13.0 over gpt-oss-20b (54.8%), +2.2 over o4-mini (65.6%), +10.2 over o3-mini (57.6%), −2.6 under o3 (70.4%).
- Codeforces (competition coding Elo, with tools): 2622. +106 over gpt-oss-20b (2516), −97 under o4-mini (2719), −84 under o3 (2706).

#### Independent numbers

- Artificial Analysis Intelligence Index (current v4.3.2): 11.6. +2.6 over gpt-oss-20b (9.0), −5.1 under o4-mini (16.7), −1.5 under DeepSeek R1 0528 (13.1), −1.1 under Qwen3-235B-A22B-Thinking-2507 (12.7).


---

Source: https://handyai.news/modeldrop/gpt-oss

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