Claude Opus 5.5 (Xhigh, Default Fallback) vs Gemini 3.8 Flash (Medium)
Which is better for the money: Claude Opus 5.5 (Xhigh, Default Fallback) by Anthropic or Gemini 3.8 Flash (Medium) by Google? Intelligence, total benchmark cost, and end-to-end time from Artificial Analysis & other sources, snapshot 2026-10-24.
Depends on your budget
Claude Opus 5.5 (Xhigh, Default Fallbac… scores 16.2 points higher (56.0 vs 39.8) but costs 3.7× as much to run the benchmark ($4057 vs $1100; flagship vs premium cost classes). They are not alternatives at one budget: pick Claude Opus 5.5 (Xhigh, Default Fallbac… when you need intelligence above 39.8, and Gemini 3.8 Flash (Medium) when 39.8 is enough.
| Metric | Claude Opus 5.5 (Xhigh, Default Fallback) | Gemini 3.8 Flash (Medium) | Difference |
|---|---|---|---|
| Intelligence (higher is better) | 56.0 | 39.8 | −28.9% Gemini 3.8 Flash (Med… is 28.9% less intelligent |
| Total AA cost (lower is better) | $4,056.65 | $1,100.06 | −72.9% Gemini 3.8 Flash (Med… is 72.9% cheaper |
| End-to-end time (lower is better) | 123.06s | Not reported | — not comparable |
| Price per 1M tokens (in / out) | $4.00 / $20.0 | $0.75 / $3.75 | |
| Input modalities | Text, Image | Text, Image, Speech, Video |
Gemini 3.8 Flash (Medium) vs Claude Opus 5.5 (Xhigh, Default Fallback): 28.9% less intelligence, 72.9% less cost to run the AA benchmark, and end-to-end time not fully reported.
Against the frontier
- Claude Opus 5.5 (Xhigh, Default Fallback) is on today's frontier: nothing is both smarter and cheaper.
- Gemini 3.8 Flash (Medium) is off the frontier: at the same or lower cost, GPT-6.1 Sol (Max) scores 51.80 for $1082.
Compare something else
Accept: text/markdown or ?format=md returns this page as Markdown. JSON: /api/v1/compare/claude-opus-5-5-xhigh/gemini-3-8-flash-medium · Markdown: /api/v1/compare/claude-opus-5-5-xhigh/gemini-3-8-flash-medium?format=md · llms.txt · agent skill