Claude Opus 5 (High) vs DeepSeek V4 Flash 0420 (Max)
Which is better for the money: Claude Opus 5 (High) by Anthropic or DeepSeek V4 Flash 0420 (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 23.9 points higher (48.1 vs 24.2) but costs 29× as much to run the benchmark ($4332 vs $149; flagship vs mid-range cost classes). They are not alternatives at one budget: pick Claude Opus 5 (High) when you need intelligence above 24.2, and DeepSeek V4 Flash 0420 (Max) when 24.2 is enough.
| Metric | Claude Opus 5 (High) | DeepSeek V4 Flash 0420 (Max) | Difference |
|---|---|---|---|
| Intelligence (higher is better) | 48.1 | 24.2 | −49.7% DeepSeek V4 Flash 042… is 49.7% less intelligent |
| Total AA cost (lower is better) | $4,331.68 | $149.48 | −96.5% DeepSeek V4 Flash 042… is 96.5% cheaper |
| End-to-end time (lower is better) | 24.66s | 100.76s | +308.6% DeepSeek V4 Flash 042… is 308.6% slower |
| Price per 1M tokens (in / out) | $5.00 / $25.0 | $0.11 / $0.23 | |
| Input modalities | Text, Image | Text |
DeepSeek V4 Flash 0420 (Max) vs Claude Opus 5 (High): 49.7% less intelligence, 96.5% less cost to run the AA benchmark, and 308.6% slower 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 Flash 0420 (Max) is off the frontier: at the same or lower cost, GPT-6 Luna (Max) scores 38.10 for $122.
Claude Opus 5 (High)DeepSeek V4 Flash 0420 (Max)Today's Pareto frontierOpen-weights frontierEvery other model
Matchup
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