Claude Opus 5.5 (Xhigh, Default Fallback) vs Claude Opus 5 (High)
Which is better for the money: Claude Opus 5.5 (Xhigh, Default Fallback) by Anthropic or Claude Opus 5 (High) by Anthropic? Intelligence, total benchmark cost, and end-to-end time from Artificial Analysis & other sources, snapshot 2026-10-26.
Clear winner
Verdict
Pick Claude Opus 5.5 (Xhigh, Default Fallback)
Claude Opus 5 (High) vs Claude Opus 5.5 (Xhigh, Default Fallback): 14.1% less intelligence, 6.8% more cost to run the AA benchmark, and 78.8% faster end-to-end.
| Metric | Claude Opus 5.5 (Xhigh, Default Fallback) | Claude Opus 5 (High) | Difference |
|---|---|---|---|
| Intelligence (higher is better) | 56.0 | 48.1 | −14.1% Claude Opus 5 (High) is 14.1% less intelligent |
| Total AA cost (lower is better) | $4,056.65 | $4,331.68 | +6.8% Claude Opus 5 (High) is 6.8% more expensive |
| End-to-end time (lower is better) | 125.20s | 26.50s | −78.8% Claude Opus 5 (High) is 78.8% faster |
| Price per 1M tokens (in / out) | $4.00 / $20.0 | $5.00 / $25.0 | |
| Input modalities | Text, Image | Text, Image |
Today's Pareto frontier
Against the frontier
- Claude Opus 5.5 (Xhigh, Default Fallback) is on today's frontier: nothing is both smarter and cheaper.
- Claude Opus 5 (High) is off the frontier: at the same or lower cost, Claude Opus 5.5 (Xhigh, Default Fallback) scores 56.00 for $4057.
Claude Opus 5.5 (Xhigh, Default Fallback)Claude Opus 5 (High)Today's Pareto frontierEvery other model
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