Claude Opus 5.5 (Xhigh, Default Fallback) vs DeepSeek V3 0324
Which is better for the money: Claude Opus 5.5 (Xhigh, Default Fallback) by Anthropic or DeepSeek V3 0324 by DeepSeek? 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 (Xhigh, Default Fallbac… scores 46.3 points higher (56.0 vs 9.7) but costs 204× as much to run the benchmark ($4057 vs $19.9; flagship vs budget cost classes). They are not alternatives at one budget: pick Claude Opus 5.5 (Xhigh, Default Fallbac… when you need intelligence above 9.7, and DeepSeek V3 0324 when 9.7 is enough.
| Metric | Claude Opus 5.5 (Xhigh, Default Fallback) | DeepSeek V3 0324 | Difference |
|---|---|---|---|
| Intelligence (higher is better) | 56.0 | 9.7 | −82.7% DeepSeek V3 0324 is 82.7% less intelligent |
| Total AA cost (lower is better) | $4,056.65 | $19.87 | −99.5% DeepSeek V3 0324 is 99.5% cheaper |
| End-to-end time (lower is better) | 125.20s | 4.39s | −96.5% DeepSeek V3 0324 is 96.5% faster |
| Price per 1M tokens (in / out) | $4.00 / $20.0 | $0.24 / $0.90 | |
| Input modalities | Text, Image | Text |
DeepSeek V3 0324 vs Claude Opus 5.5 (Xhigh, Default Fallback): 82.7% less intelligence, 99.5% less cost to run the AA benchmark, and 96.5% faster end-to-end.
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.
- DeepSeek V3 0324 is off the frontier: at the same or lower cost, GPT-6 Luna (Low) scores 21.50 for $10.6.
Claude Opus 5.5 (Xhigh, Default Fallback)DeepSeek V3 0324Today's Pareto frontierOpen-weights 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-xhigh/deepseek-v3-0324 · Markdown: /api/v1/compare/claude-opus-5-5-xhigh/deepseek-v3-0324?format=md · llms.txt · agent skill