Claude Opus 4.8 (Max) vs Gemini 3.6 Flash (High)
Which is better for the money: Claude Opus 4.8 (Max) by Anthropic or Gemini 3.6 Flash (High) by Google? Intelligence, total benchmark cost, and end-to-end time from Artificial Analysis & other sources, snapshot 2026-10-24.
Trade-off
Verdict
Depends on your budget
Claude Opus 4.8 (Max) scores 7.8 points higher (41.8 vs 34.0) but costs 4.3× as much to run the benchmark ($6874 vs $1614; flagship vs premium cost classes). They are not alternatives at one budget: pick Claude Opus 4.8 (Max) when you need intelligence above 34.0, and Gemini 3.6 Flash (High) when 34.0 is enough.
| Metric | Claude Opus 4.8 (Max) | Gemini 3.6 Flash (High) | Difference |
|---|---|---|---|
| Intelligence (higher is better) | 41.8 | 34.0 | −18.7% Gemini 3.6 Flash (Hig… is 18.7% less intelligent |
| Total AA cost (lower is better) | $6,873.86 | $1,614.42 | −76.5% Gemini 3.6 Flash (Hig… is 76.5% cheaper |
| End-to-end time (lower is better) | 36.92s | 17.79s | −51.8% Gemini 3.6 Flash (Hig… is 51.8% faster |
| Price per 1M tokens (in / out) | $5.00 / $25.0 | $0.75 / $3.75 | |
| Input modalities | Text, Image | Text, Image, Speech, Video |
Gemini 3.6 Flash (High) vs Claude Opus 4.8 (Max): 18.7% less intelligence, 76.5% less cost to run the AA benchmark, and 51.8% 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 3.6 Flash (High) 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 3.6 Flash (High)Today's Pareto frontierEvery other model
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Accept: text/markdown or ?format=md returns this page as Markdown. JSON: /api/v1/compare/claude-opus-4-8/gemini-3-6-flash · Markdown: /api/v1/compare/claude-opus-4-8/gemini-3-6-flash?format=md · llms.txt · agent skill