Claude Opus 5.5 (Low, Default Fallback) vs Gemini 4 Carbon (High)
Which is better for the money: Claude Opus 5.5 (Low, 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 24.9 points higher (59.4 vs 34.5) but costs 8.4× as much to run the benchmark ($8240 vs $980; flagship vs premium cost classes). They are not alternatives at one budget: pick Gemini 4 Carbon (High) when you need intelligence above 34.5, and Claude Opus 5.5 (Low, Default Fallback) when 34.5 is enough.
| Metric | Claude Opus 5.5 (Low, Default Fallback) | Gemini 4 Carbon (High) | Difference |
|---|---|---|---|
| Intelligence (higher is better) | 34.5 | 59.4 | +72.2% Gemini 4 Carbon (High) is 72.2% more intelligent |
| Total AA cost (lower is better) | $979.66 | $8,239.69 | +741.1% Gemini 4 Carbon (High) is 8.4× more expensive |
| End-to-end time (lower is better) | 10.43s | 105.19s | +908.5% Gemini 4 Carbon (High) is 908.5% 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 (Low, Default Fallback): 72.2% more intelligence, 741.1% more cost to run the AA benchmark, and 908.5% slower end-to-end.
Today's Pareto frontier
Against the frontier
- Claude Opus 5.5 (Low, Default Fallback) is off the frontier: at the same or lower cost, GPT-6.1 Sol (Xhigh) scores 52.30 for $718.
- Gemini 4 Carbon (High) is on today's frontier: nothing is both smarter and cheaper.
Claude Opus 5.5 (Low, Default Fallback)Gemini 4 Carbon (High)Today's Pareto frontierEvery other model
Matchup
Compare something else
Agents:
Accept: text/markdown or ?format=md returns this page as Markdown. JSON: /api/v1/compare/claude-opus-5-5-low/gemini-4-carbon · Markdown: /api/v1/compare/claude-opus-5-5-low/gemini-4-carbon?format=md · llms.txt · agent skill