Claude Opus 5.5 (Max, Default Fallback) vs Gemini 4 Carbon (High)
Which is better for the money: Claude Opus 5.5 (Max, Default Fallback) by Anthropic or Gemini 4 Carbon (High) by Google? Intelligence, total benchmark cost, and end-to-end time from Artificial Analysis & other sources, snapshot 2026-10-29.
Clear winner
Verdict
Pick Gemini 4 Carbon (High)
Gemini 4 Carbon (High) vs Claude Opus 5.5 (Max, Default Fallback): 1.7% more intelligence, 7.5% less cost to run the AA benchmark, and 84.5% faster end-to-end.
| Metric | Claude Opus 5.5 (Max, Default Fallback) | Gemini 4 Carbon (High) | Difference |
|---|---|---|---|
| Intelligence (higher is better) | 58.4 | 59.4 | +1.7% Gemini 4 Carbon (High) is 1.7% more intelligent |
| Total AA cost (lower is better) | $8,909.67 | $8,239.69 | −7.5% Gemini 4 Carbon (High) is 7.5% cheaper |
| End-to-end time (lower is better) | 661.74s | 102.49s | −84.5% Gemini 4 Carbon (High) is 84.5% faster |
| Price per 1M tokens (in / out) | $4.00 / $20.0 | $4.00 / $20.0 | |
| Input modalities | Text, Image | Text, Image, Speech, Video |
Today's Pareto frontier
Against the frontier
- Claude Opus 5.5 (Max, Default Fallback) is off the frontier: at the same or lower cost, Gemini 4 Carbon (High) scores 59.40 for $8240.
- Gemini 4 Carbon (High) is on today's frontier: nothing is both smarter and cheaper.
Claude Opus 5.5 (Max, Default Fallback)Gemini 4 Carbon (High)Today's Pareto frontierEvery other model
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Accept: text/markdown or ?format=md returns this page as Markdown. JSON: /api/v1/compare/claude-opus-5-5/gemini-4-carbon · Markdown: /api/v1/compare/claude-opus-5-5/gemini-4-carbon?format=md · llms.txt · agent skill