Claude Opus 5 (Low) vs Claude Opus 5 (Xhigh)
Which is better for the money: Claude Opus 5 (Low) by Anthropic or Claude Opus 5 (Xhigh) by Anthropic? 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 (Xhigh) scores 10.3 points higher (49.7 vs 39.4) but costs 3.8× as much to run the benchmark ($5868 vs $1561; flagship vs premium cost classes). They are not alternatives at one budget: pick Claude Opus 5 (Xhigh) when you need intelligence above 39.4, and Claude Opus 5 (Low) when 39.4 is enough.
| Metric | Claude Opus 5 (Low) | Claude Opus 5 (Xhigh) | Difference |
|---|---|---|---|
| Intelligence (higher is better) | 39.4 | 49.7 | +26.1% Claude Opus 5 (Xhigh) is 26.1% more intelligent |
| Total AA cost (lower is better) | $1,560.91 | $5,867.76 | +275.9% Claude Opus 5 (Xhigh) is 3.8× more expensive |
| End-to-end time (lower is better) | 11.79s | 35.31s | +199.5% Claude Opus 5 (Xhigh) is 199.5% slower |
| Price per 1M tokens (in / out) | $5.00 / $25.0 | $5.00 / $25.0 | |
| Input modalities | Text, Image | Text, Image |
Claude Opus 5 (Xhigh) vs Claude Opus 5 (Low): 26.1% more intelligence, 275.9% more cost to run the AA benchmark, and 199.5% slower end-to-end.
Today's Pareto frontier
Against the frontier
- Claude Opus 5 (Low) is off the frontier: at the same or lower cost, GPT-6.1 Sol (Max) scores 51.80 for $1082.
- Claude Opus 5 (Xhigh) is off the frontier: at the same or lower cost, Claude Opus 5.5 (Xhigh, Default Fallback) scores 56.00 for $4057.
Claude Opus 5 (Low)Claude Opus 5 (Xhigh)Today's Pareto frontierEvery other model
Matchup
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Accept: text/markdown or ?format=md returns this page as Markdown. JSON: /api/v1/compare/claude-opus-5-low/claude-opus-5-xhigh · Markdown: /api/v1/compare/claude-opus-5-low/claude-opus-5-xhigh?format=md · llms.txt · agent skill