Claude Opus 5.5 (High, Default Fallback) vs Gemini 4 Carbon (High)
Which is better for the money: Claude Opus 5.5 (High, Default Fallback) by Anthropic or Gemini 4 Carbon (High) by Google? Intelligence, total benchmark cost, and end-to-end time from Artificial Analysis & other sources, snapshot 2026-10-29.
Trade-off
Verdict
Depends on your budget
Gemini 4 Carbon (High) scores 7.7 points higher (59.4 vs 51.7) but costs 3.0× as much to run the benchmark ($8240 vs $2716; both flagship class). They are not alternatives at one budget: pick Gemini 4 Carbon (High) when you need intelligence above 51.7, and Claude Opus 5.5 (High, Default Fallback) when 51.7 is enough.
| Metric | Claude Opus 5.5 (High, Default Fallback) | Gemini 4 Carbon (High) | Difference |
|---|---|---|---|
| Intelligence (higher is better) | 51.7 | 59.4 | +14.9% Gemini 4 Carbon (High) is 14.9% more intelligent |
| Total AA cost (lower is better) | $2,715.98 | $8,239.69 | +203.4% Gemini 4 Carbon (High) is 3.0× more expensive |
| End-to-end time (lower is better) | 39.69s | 105.19s | +165.0% Gemini 4 Carbon (High) is 165.0% slower |
| Price per 1M tokens (in / out) | $4.00 / $20.0 | $4.00 / $20.0 | |
| Input modalities | Text, Image | Text, Image, Speech, Video |
Gemini 4 Carbon (High) vs Claude Opus 5.5 (High, Default Fallback): 14.9% more intelligence, 203.4% more cost to run the AA benchmark, and 165.0% slower end-to-end.
Today's Pareto frontier
Against the frontier
- Claude Opus 5.5 (High, Default Fallback) is off the frontier: at the same or lower cost, GPT-6.1 Sol (Max) scores 54.50 for $1124.
- Gemini 4 Carbon (High) is on today's frontier: nothing is both smarter and cheaper.
Claude Opus 5.5 (High, Default Fallback)Gemini 4 Carbon (High)Today's Pareto frontierEvery other model
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