Claude Opus 4.8 (Adaptive Reasoning, Max Effort) vs Kimi K2.7 Code
Which is better for the money: Claude Opus 4.8 (Adaptive Reasoning, Max Effort) by Anthropic or Kimi K2.7 Code by Kimi? Intelligence, total benchmark cost, and end-to-end time from Artificial Analysis & other sources, snapshot 2026-09-09.
Trade-off
Verdict
Depends on your budget
Claude Opus 4.8 (Adaptive Reasoning, Ma… scores 15.7 points higher (42.0 vs 26.3) but costs 6.9× as much to run the benchmark ($6874 vs $993; flagship vs premium cost classes). They are not alternatives at one budget: pick Claude Opus 4.8 (Adaptive Reasoning, Ma… when you need intelligence above 26.3, and Kimi K2.7 Code when 26.3 is enough.
| Metric | Claude Opus 4.8 (Adaptive Reasoning, Max Effort) | Kimi K2.7 Code | Difference |
|---|---|---|---|
| Intelligence (higher is better) | 42.0 | 26.3 | −37.4% Kimi K2.7 Code is 37.4% less intelligent |
| Total AA cost (lower is better) | $6,873.86 | $992.88 | −85.6% Kimi K2.7 Code is 85.6% cheaper |
| End-to-end time (lower is better) | 25.45s | 41.22s | +62.0% Kimi K2.7 Code is 62.0% slower |
| Price per 1M tokens (in / out) | $5.00 / $25.0 | $0.95 / $4.00 | |
| Input modalities | Not reported | Not reported |
Kimi K2.7 Code vs Claude Opus 4.8 (Adaptive Reasoning, Max Effort): 37.4% less intelligence, 85.6% less cost to run the AA benchmark, and 62.0% slower 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, GPT-6 Astra (max) scores 52.80 for $5324.
- Kimi K2.7 Code is off the frontier: at the same or lower cost, GLM-5.3-Flash scores 41.90 for $280.
Claude Opus 4.8 (Adaptive Reasoning, Max Effort)Kimi K2.7 CodeToday's Pareto frontierOpen-weights frontierEvery other model
Matchup
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