Claude Opus 5.5 (Xhigh, Default Fallback) vs Qwen3.8 Max
Which is better for the money: Claude Opus 5.5 (Xhigh, Default Fallback) by Anthropic or Qwen3.8 Max by Alibaba? Intelligence, total benchmark cost, and end-to-end time from Artificial Analysis & other sources, snapshot 2026-10-27.
Trade-off
Verdict
Depends on your budget
Claude Opus 5.5 (Xhigh, Default Fallbac… scores 15.8 points higher (56.0 vs 40.2) but costs 1.3× as much to run the benchmark ($4057 vs $3172; both flagship class). Pick Claude Opus 5.5 (Xhigh, Default Fallbac… when the extra intelligence is worth the premium, otherwise Qwen3.8 Max.
| Metric | Claude Opus 5.5 (Xhigh, Default Fallback) | Qwen3.8 Max | Difference |
|---|---|---|---|
| Intelligence (higher is better) | 56.0 | 40.2 | −28.2% Qwen3.8 Max is 28.2% less intelligent |
| Total AA cost (lower is better) | $4,056.65 | $3,172.37 | −21.8% Qwen3.8 Max is 21.8% cheaper |
| End-to-end time (lower is better) | 127.76s | 62.08s | −51.4% Qwen3.8 Max is 51.4% faster |
| Price per 1M tokens (in / out) | $4.00 / $20.0 | $2.00 / $6.00 | |
| Input modalities | Text, Image | Text, Image, Video |
Qwen3.8 Max vs Claude Opus 5.5 (Xhigh, Default Fallback): 28.2% less intelligence, 21.8% less cost to run the AA benchmark, and 51.4% 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.
- Qwen3.8 Max is off the frontier: at the same or lower cost, Kimi K3.1 Pro scores 55.10 for $3117.
Claude Opus 5.5 (Xhigh, Default Fallback)Qwen3.8 MaxToday's Pareto frontierEvery other model
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