Claude Opus 4.8 (Max) vs DeepSeek V4 Flash Vision (Max)
Which is better for the money: Claude Opus 4.8 (Max) by Anthropic or DeepSeek V4 Flash Vision (Max) by DeepSeek? Intelligence, total benchmark cost, and end-to-end time from Artificial Analysis & other sources, snapshot 2026-10-25.
Trade-off
Verdict
Depends on your budget
Claude Opus 4.8 (Max) scores 7.0 points higher (41.8 vs 34.8) but costs 6.4× as much to run the benchmark ($6874 vs $1081; flagship vs premium cost classes). They are not alternatives at one budget: pick Claude Opus 4.8 (Max) when you need intelligence above 34.8, and DeepSeek V4 Flash Vision (Max) when 34.8 is enough.
| Metric | Claude Opus 4.8 (Max) | DeepSeek V4 Flash Vision (Max) | Difference |
|---|---|---|---|
| Intelligence (higher is better) | 41.8 | 34.8 | −16.7% DeepSeek V4 Flash Vis… is 16.7% less intelligent |
| Total AA cost (lower is better) | $6,873.86 | $1,081.42 | −84.3% DeepSeek V4 Flash Vis… is 84.3% cheaper |
| End-to-end time (lower is better) | 37.90s | 15.95s | −57.9% DeepSeek V4 Flash Vis… is 57.9% faster |
| Price per 1M tokens (in / out) | $5.00 / $25.0 | $0.44 / $1.32 | |
| Input modalities | Text, Image | Text, Image |
DeepSeek V4 Flash Vision (Max) vs Claude Opus 4.8 (Max): 16.7% less intelligence, 84.3% less cost to run the AA benchmark, and 57.9% faster end-to-end.
Today's Pareto frontier
Against the frontier
- Claude Opus 4.8 (Max) is off the frontier: at the same or lower cost, Claude Opus 5.5 (Xhigh, Default Fallback) scores 56.00 for $4057.
- DeepSeek V4 Flash Vision (Max) is off the frontier: at the same or lower cost, GPT-6.1 Sol (Xhigh) scores 51.00 for $662.
Claude Opus 4.8 (Max)DeepSeek V4 Flash Vision (Max)Today's Pareto frontierEvery other model
Matchup
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