Claude Opus 5 (High) vs DeepSeek V4.1 Flash (Max)
Which is better for the money: Claude Opus 5 (High) by Anthropic or DeepSeek V4.1 Flash (Max) by DeepSeek? Intelligence, total benchmark cost, and end-to-end time from Artificial Analysis & other sources, snapshot 2026-10-25.
Trade-off
Verdict
Depends on your budget
Claude Opus 5 (High) scores 8.6 points higher (48.1 vs 39.5) but costs 6.4× as much to run the benchmark ($4332 vs $672; flagship vs premium cost classes). They are not alternatives at one budget: pick Claude Opus 5 (High) when you need intelligence above 39.5, and DeepSeek V4.1 Flash (Max) when 39.5 is enough.
| Metric | Claude Opus 5 (High) | DeepSeek V4.1 Flash (Max) | Difference |
|---|---|---|---|
| Intelligence (higher is better) | 48.1 | 39.5 | −17.9% DeepSeek V4.1 Flash (… is 17.9% less intelligent |
| Total AA cost (lower is better) | $4,331.68 | $671.96 | −84.5% DeepSeek V4.1 Flash (… is 84.5% cheaper |
| End-to-end time (lower is better) | 24.66s | 15.00s | −39.2% DeepSeek V4.1 Flash (… is 39.2% faster |
| Price per 1M tokens (in / out) | $5.00 / $25.0 | $0.29 / $1.20 | |
| Input modalities | Text, Image | Text, Image |
DeepSeek V4.1 Flash (Max) vs Claude Opus 5 (High): 17.9% less intelligence, 84.5% less cost to run the AA benchmark, and 39.2% faster end-to-end.
Today's Pareto frontier
Against the frontier
- Claude Opus 5 (High) is off the frontier: at the same or lower cost, Claude Opus 5.5 (Xhigh, Default Fallback) scores 56.00 for $4057.
- DeepSeek V4.1 Flash (Max) is off the frontier: at the same or lower cost, GPT-6.1 Sol (Xhigh) scores 51.00 for $662.
Claude Opus 5 (High)DeepSeek V4.1 Flash (Max)Today's Pareto frontierOpen-weights frontierEvery other model
Matchup
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