Claude 4.5 Sonnet (Reasoning) vs Trinity Large Thinking
Which is better for the money: Claude 4.5 Sonnet (Reasoning) by Anthropic or Trinity Large Thinking by Arcee AI? Intelligence, total benchmark cost, and end-to-end time from Artificial Analysis & other sources, snapshot 2026-08-17.
Trade-off
Verdict
Depends on your budget
Claude 4.5 Sonnet (Reasoning) scores 18.7 points higher (37.4 vs 18.7) but costs 4.1× as much to run the benchmark ($1037 vs $255; premium vs mid-range cost classes). They are not alternatives at one budget: pick Claude 4.5 Sonnet (Reasoning) when you need intelligence above 18.7, and Trinity Large Thinking when 18.7 is enough.
| Metric | Claude 4.5 Sonnet (Reasoning) | Trinity Large Thinking | Difference |
|---|---|---|---|
| Intelligence (higher is better) | 37.4 | 18.7 | −50.0% Trinity Large Thinking is 50.0% less intelligent |
| Total AA cost (lower is better) | $1,036.95 | $254.72 | −75.4% Trinity Large Thinking is 75.4% cheaper |
| End-to-end time (lower is better) | 24.07s | 13.49s | −44.0% Trinity Large Thinking is 44.0% faster |
| Price per 1M tokens (in / out) | $3.00 / $15.0 | $0.23 / $0.88 | |
| Input modalities | Not reported | Not reported |
Trinity Large Thinking vs Claude 4.5 Sonnet (Reasoning): 50.0% less intelligence, 75.4% less cost to run the AA benchmark, and 44.0% faster end-to-end.
Today's Pareto frontier
Against the frontier
- Claude 4.5 Sonnet (Reasoning) is off the frontier: at the same or lower cost, GPT-5.6 Sol (high) scores 57.30 for $955.
- Trinity Large Thinking is off the frontier: at the same or lower cost, GPT-5.6 Luna (max) scores 52.30 for $172.
Claude 4.5 Sonnet (Reasoning)Trinity Large ThinkingToday's Pareto frontierOpen-weights frontierEvery other model
Matchup
Compare something else
Agents:
Accept: text/markdown or ?format=md returns this page as Markdown. JSON: /api/v1/compare/claude-4-5-sonnet-thinking/trinity-large-thinking · Markdown: /api/v1/compare/claude-4-5-sonnet-thinking/trinity-large-thinking?format=md · llms.txt · agent skill