Claude Opus 4.8 (Max) vs Grok 4.5 (High)
Which is better for the money: Claude Opus 4.8 (Max) by Anthropic or Grok 4.5 (High) by SpaceXAI? 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 3.0 points higher (41.8 vs 38.8) but costs 5.5× as much to run the benchmark ($6874 vs $1244; flagship vs premium cost classes). They are not alternatives at one budget: pick Claude Opus 4.8 (Max) when you need intelligence above 38.8, and Grok 4.5 (High) when 38.8 is enough.
| Metric | Claude Opus 4.8 (Max) | Grok 4.5 (High) | Difference |
|---|---|---|---|
| Intelligence (higher is better) | 41.8 | 38.8 | −7.2% Grok 4.5 (High) is 7.2% less intelligent |
| Total AA cost (lower is better) | $6,873.86 | $1,243.85 | −81.9% Grok 4.5 (High) is 81.9% cheaper |
| End-to-end time (lower is better) | 37.90s | 19.24s | −49.2% Grok 4.5 (High) is 49.2% faster |
| Price per 1M tokens (in / out) | $5.00 / $25.0 | $2.00 / $6.00 | |
| Input modalities | Text, Image | Text, Image |
Grok 4.5 (High) vs Claude Opus 4.8 (Max): 7.2% less intelligence, 81.9% less cost to run the AA benchmark, and 49.2% 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.
- Grok 4.5 (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)Grok 4.5 (High)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/grok-4-5 · Markdown: /api/v1/compare/claude-opus-4-8/grok-4-5?format=md · llms.txt · agent skill