Claude Opus 4.8 (Max) vs GPT-5.6 Sol (Xhigh)
Which is better for the money: Claude Opus 4.8 (Max) by Anthropic or GPT-5.6 Sol (Xhigh) by OpenAI? Intelligence, total benchmark cost, and end-to-end time from Artificial Analysis & other sources, snapshot 2026-10-26.
Clear winner
Verdict
Pick GPT-5.6 Sol (Xhigh)
GPT-5.6 Sol (Xhigh) vs Claude Opus 4.8 (Max): 5.3% more intelligence, 69.7% less cost to run the AA benchmark, and 16.6% slower end-to-end.
| Metric | Claude Opus 4.8 (Max) | GPT-5.6 Sol (Xhigh) | Difference |
|---|---|---|---|
| Intelligence (higher is better) | 41.8 | 44.0 | +5.3% GPT-5.6 Sol (Xhigh) is 5.3% more intelligent |
| Total AA cost (lower is better) | $6,873.86 | $2,082.28 | −69.7% GPT-5.6 Sol (Xhigh) is 69.7% cheaper |
| End-to-end time (lower is better) | 40.90s | 47.67s | +16.6% GPT-5.6 Sol (Xhigh) is 16.6% slower |
| Price per 1M tokens (in / out) | $5.00 / $25.0 | $4.00 / $20.0 | |
| Input modalities | Text, Image | Text, Image |
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.
- GPT-5.6 Sol (Xhigh) 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)GPT-5.6 Sol (Xhigh)Today'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/gpt-5-6-sol-xhigh · Markdown: /api/v1/compare/claude-opus-4-8/gpt-5-6-sol-xhigh?format=md · llms.txt · agent skill