Claude Opus 5.5 (Medium, Default Fallback) vs GPT-6.1 Sol (Xhigh)
Which is better for the money: Claude Opus 5.5 (Medium, Default Fallback) by Anthropic or GPT-6.1 Sol (Xhigh) by OpenAI? Intelligence, total benchmark cost, and end-to-end time from Artificial Analysis & other sources, snapshot 2026-10-26.
Trade-off
Verdict
Depends on your budget
Claude Opus 5.5 (Medium, Default Fallba… scores 0.2 points higher (51.2 vs 51.0) but costs 2.5× as much to run the benchmark ($1627 vs $662; both premium class). Pick Claude Opus 5.5 (Medium, Default Fallba… when the extra intelligence is worth the premium, otherwise GPT-6.1 Sol (Xhigh).
| Metric | Claude Opus 5.5 (Medium, Default Fallback) | GPT-6.1 Sol (Xhigh) | Difference |
|---|---|---|---|
| Intelligence (higher is better) | 51.2 | 51.0 | −0.4% GPT-6.1 Sol (Xhigh) is 0.4% less intelligent |
| Total AA cost (lower is better) | $1,626.81 | $662.28 | −59.3% GPT-6.1 Sol (Xhigh) is 59.3% cheaper |
| End-to-end time (lower is better) | 25.34s | 143.74s | +467.2% GPT-6.1 Sol (Xhigh) is 467.2% slower |
| Price per 1M tokens (in / out) | $4.00 / $20.0 | $2.00 / $10.0 | |
| Input modalities | Text, Image | Text, Image |
GPT-6.1 Sol (Xhigh) vs Claude Opus 5.5 (Medium, Default Fallback): 0.4% less intelligence, 59.3% less cost to run the AA benchmark, and 467.2% slower end-to-end.
Today's Pareto frontier
Against the frontier
- Claude Opus 5.5 (Medium, Default Fallback) is off the frontier: at the same or lower cost, GPT-6.1 Sol (Max) scores 51.80 for $1082.
- GPT-6.1 Sol (Xhigh) is on today's frontier: nothing is both smarter and cheaper.
Claude Opus 5.5 (Medium, Default Fallback)GPT-6.1 Sol (Xhigh)Today's Pareto frontierEvery other model
Matchup
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