Claude Opus 4.8 (Max) vs Gemini 3.1 Pro Preview
Which is better for the money: Claude Opus 4.8 (Max) by Anthropic or Gemini 3.1 Pro Preview by Google? 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 12.1 points higher (41.8 vs 29.7) but costs 3.6× as much to run the benchmark ($6874 vs $1935; flagship vs premium cost classes). They are not alternatives at one budget: pick Claude Opus 4.8 (Max) when you need intelligence above 29.7, and Gemini 3.1 Pro Preview when 29.7 is enough.
| Metric | Claude Opus 4.8 (Max) | Gemini 3.1 Pro Preview | Difference |
|---|---|---|---|
| Intelligence (higher is better) | 41.8 | 29.7 | −28.9% Gemini 3.1 Pro Preview is 28.9% less intelligent |
| Total AA cost (lower is better) | $6,873.86 | $1,935.39 | −71.8% Gemini 3.1 Pro Preview is 71.8% cheaper |
| End-to-end time (lower is better) | 37.99s | 25.04s | −34.1% Gemini 3.1 Pro Preview is 34.1% faster |
| Price per 1M tokens (in / out) | $5.00 / $25.0 | $2.00 / $12.0 | |
| Input modalities | Text, Image | Text, Image, Speech, Video |
Gemini 3.1 Pro Preview vs Claude Opus 4.8 (Max): 28.9% less intelligence, 71.8% less cost to run the AA benchmark, and 34.1% 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.
- Gemini 3.1 Pro Preview is off the frontier: at the same or lower cost, GPT-6.1 Sol (Max) scores 51.80 for $1082.
Claude Opus 4.8 (Max)Gemini 3.1 Pro PreviewToday's Pareto frontierEvery other model
Matchup
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Accept: text/markdown or ?format=md returns this page as Markdown. JSON: /api/v1/compare/claude-opus-4-8/gemini-3-1-pro-preview · Markdown: /api/v1/compare/claude-opus-4-8/gemini-3-1-pro-preview?format=md · llms.txt · agent skill