Claude Opus 5.5 (Xhigh, Default Fallback) vs Gemini 4 Carbon (Medium)
Which is better for the money: Claude Opus 5.5 (Xhigh, Default Fallback) by Anthropic or Gemini 4 Carbon (Medium) by Google? Intelligence, total benchmark cost, and end-to-end time from Artificial Analysis & other sources, snapshot 2026-11-03.
Trade-off
Verdict
Depends on your budget
Gemini 4 Carbon (Medium) scores 0.7 points higher (57.7 vs 57.0) but costs 1.2× as much to run the benchmark ($5903 vs $4766; both flagship class). Pick Gemini 4 Carbon (Medium) when the extra intelligence is worth the premium, otherwise Claude Opus 5.5 (Xhigh, Default Fallbac….
| Metric | Claude Opus 5.5 (Xhigh, Default Fallback) | Gemini 4 Carbon (Medium) | Difference |
|---|---|---|---|
| Intelligence (higher is better) | 57.0 | 57.7 | +1.2% Gemini 4 Carbon (Medi… is 1.2% more intelligent |
| Total AA cost (lower is better) | $4,765.91 | $5,903.03 | +23.9% Gemini 4 Carbon (Medi… is 23.9% more expensive |
| End-to-end time (lower is better) | 127.59s | 11.62s | −90.9% Gemini 4 Carbon (Medi… is 90.9% faster |
| 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 (Medium) vs Claude Opus 5.5 (Xhigh, Default Fallback): 1.2% more intelligence, 23.9% more cost to run the AA benchmark, and 90.9% 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.
- Gemini 4 Carbon (Medium) is on today's frontier: nothing is both smarter and cheaper.
Claude Opus 5.5 (Xhigh, Default Fallback)Gemini 4 Carbon (Medium)Today's Pareto frontierEvery other model
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