Claude Opus 5.5 (High, Default Fallback) vs Gemini 4 Carbon (Low)
Which is better for the money: Claude Opus 5.5 (High, Default Fallback) by Anthropic or Gemini 4 Carbon (Low) by Google? Intelligence, total benchmark cost, and end-to-end time from Artificial Analysis & other sources, snapshot 2026-11-04.
Trade-off
Verdict
Depends on your budget
Gemini 4 Carbon (Low) scores 2.4 points higher (54.2 vs 51.8) but costs 2.1× as much to run the benchmark ($5725 vs $2716; both flagship class). Pick Gemini 4 Carbon (Low) when the extra intelligence is worth the premium, otherwise Claude Opus 5.5 (High, Default Fallback).
| Metric | Claude Opus 5.5 (High, Default Fallback) | Gemini 4 Carbon (Low) | Difference |
|---|---|---|---|
| Intelligence (higher is better) | 51.8 | 54.2 | +4.6% Gemini 4 Carbon (Low) is 4.6% more intelligent |
| Total AA cost (lower is better) | $2,715.98 | $5,725.02 | +110.8% Gemini 4 Carbon (Low) is 2.1× more expensive |
| End-to-end time (lower is better) | 53.89s | 16.28s | −69.8% Gemini 4 Carbon (Low) is 69.8% faster |
| 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 (Low) vs Claude Opus 5.5 (High, Default Fallback): 4.6% more intelligence, 110.8% more cost to run the AA benchmark, and 69.8% faster 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 54.60 for $1124.
- Gemini 4 Carbon (Low) is off the frontier: at the same or lower cost, Claude Opus 5.5 (Xhigh, Default Fallback) scores 57.40 for $4766.
Claude Opus 5.5 (High, Default Fallback)Gemini 4 Carbon (Low)Today's Pareto frontierEvery other model
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Accept: text/markdown or ?format=md returns this page as Markdown. JSON: /api/v1/compare/claude-opus-5-5-high/gemini-4-carbon-low · Markdown: /api/v1/compare/claude-opus-5-5-high/gemini-4-carbon-low?format=md · llms.txt · agent skill