Claude Opus 4.8 (Max) vs Muse Spark 1.2 (Xhigh)
Which is better for the money: Claude Opus 4.8 (Max) by Anthropic or Muse Spark 1.2 (Xhigh) by Meta? 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 2.2 points higher (41.8 vs 39.6) but costs 5.0× as much to run the benchmark ($6874 vs $1385; flagship vs premium cost classes). They are not alternatives at one budget: pick Claude Opus 4.8 (Max) when you need intelligence above 39.6, and Muse Spark 1.2 (Xhigh) when 39.6 is enough.
| Metric | Claude Opus 4.8 (Max) | Muse Spark 1.2 (Xhigh) | Difference |
|---|---|---|---|
| Intelligence (higher is better) | 41.8 | 39.6 | −5.3% Muse Spark 1.2 (Xhigh) is 5.3% less intelligent |
| Total AA cost (lower is better) | $6,873.86 | $1,385.40 | −79.8% Muse Spark 1.2 (Xhigh) is 79.8% cheaper |
| End-to-end time (lower is better) | 37.99s | 20.60s | −45.8% Muse Spark 1.2 (Xhigh) is 45.8% faster |
| Price per 1M tokens (in / out) | $5.00 / $25.0 | $1.25 / $4.25 | |
| Input modalities | Text, Image | Text, Image, Speech, Video |
Muse Spark 1.2 (Xhigh) vs Claude Opus 4.8 (Max): 5.3% less intelligence, 79.8% less cost to run the AA benchmark, and 45.8% 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.
- Muse Spark 1.2 (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)Muse Spark 1.2 (Xhigh)Today's Pareto frontierEvery other model
Matchup
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