Claude Opus 5 (Low) vs DeepSeek V4 Flash 0731 (Max)
Which is better for the money: Claude Opus 5 (Low) by Anthropic or DeepSeek V4 Flash 0731 (Max) by DeepSeek? 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 (Low) scores 5.1 points higher (39.4 vs 34.3) but costs 7.8× as much to run the benchmark ($1561 vs $200; premium vs mid-range cost classes). They are not alternatives at one budget: pick Claude Opus 5 (Low) when you need intelligence above 34.3, and DeepSeek V4 Flash 0731 (Max) when 34.3 is enough.
| Metric | Claude Opus 5 (Low) | DeepSeek V4 Flash 0731 (Max) | Difference |
|---|---|---|---|
| Intelligence (higher is better) | 39.4 | 34.3 | −12.9% DeepSeek V4 Flash 073… is 12.9% less intelligent |
| Total AA cost (lower is better) | $1,560.91 | $199.63 | −87.2% DeepSeek V4 Flash 073… is 87.2% cheaper |
| End-to-end time (lower is better) | 11.79s | 17.91s | +51.9% DeepSeek V4 Flash 073… is 51.9% slower |
| Price per 1M tokens (in / out) | $5.00 / $25.0 | $0.14 / $0.28 | |
| Input modalities | Text, Image | Text |
DeepSeek V4 Flash 0731 (Max) vs Claude Opus 5 (Low): 12.9% less intelligence, 87.2% less cost to run the AA benchmark, and 51.9% 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.
- DeepSeek V4 Flash 0731 (Max) is off the frontier: at the same or lower cost, Claude Haiku 5.5 (Xhigh) scores 41.20 for $158.
Claude Opus 5 (Low)DeepSeek V4 Flash 0731 (Max)Today's Pareto frontierOpen-weights frontierEvery other model
Matchup
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