Claude Opus 5.5 (Xhigh, Default Fallback) vs Grok 4.6 (Medium)
Which is better for the money: Claude Opus 5.5 (Xhigh, Default Fallback) by Anthropic or Grok 4.6 (Medium) by SpaceXAI? Intelligence, total benchmark cost, and end-to-end time from Artificial Analysis & other sources, snapshot 2026-10-24.
Trade-off
Verdict
Depends on your budget
Claude Opus 5.5 (Xhigh, Default Fallbac… scores 13.2 points higher (56.0 vs 42.8) but costs 2.6× as much to run the benchmark ($4057 vs $1557; flagship vs premium cost classes). Pick Claude Opus 5.5 (Xhigh, Default Fallbac… when the extra intelligence is worth the premium, otherwise Grok 4.6 (Medium).
| Metric | Claude Opus 5.5 (Xhigh, Default Fallback) | Grok 4.6 (Medium) | Difference |
|---|---|---|---|
| Intelligence (higher is better) | 56.0 | 42.8 | −23.6% Grok 4.6 (Medium) is 23.6% less intelligent |
| Total AA cost (lower is better) | $4,056.65 | $1,557.04 | −61.6% Grok 4.6 (Medium) is 61.6% cheaper |
| End-to-end time (lower is better) | 123.06s | 31.56s | −74.4% Grok 4.6 (Medium) is 74.4% faster |
| Price per 1M tokens (in / out) | $4.00 / $20.0 | $2.00 / $6.00 | |
| Input modalities | Text, Image | Text, Image |
Grok 4.6 (Medium) vs Claude Opus 5.5 (Xhigh, Default Fallback): 23.6% less intelligence, 61.6% less cost to run the AA benchmark, and 74.4% 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.
- Grok 4.6 (Medium) is off the frontier: at the same or lower cost, GPT-6.1 Sol (Max) scores 51.80 for $1082.
Claude Opus 5.5 (Xhigh, Default Fallback)Grok 4.6 (Medium)Today's Pareto frontierEvery other model
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