Claude Opus 5 (Low) vs Qwen3.8 Max
Which is better for the money: Claude Opus 5 (Low) by Anthropic or Qwen3.8 Max by Alibaba? 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
Qwen3.8 Max scores 0.8 points higher (40.2 vs 39.4) but costs 2.0× as much to run the benchmark ($3172 vs $1561; flagship vs premium cost classes). Pick Qwen3.8 Max when the extra intelligence is worth the premium, otherwise Claude Opus 5 (Low).
| Metric | Claude Opus 5 (Low) | Qwen3.8 Max | Difference |
|---|---|---|---|
| Intelligence (higher is better) | 39.4 | 40.2 | +2.0% Qwen3.8 Max is 2.0% more intelligent |
| Total AA cost (lower is better) | $1,560.91 | $3,172.37 | +103.2% Qwen3.8 Max is 2.0× more expensive |
| End-to-end time (lower is better) | 11.45s | 62.87s | +449.1% Qwen3.8 Max is 449.1% slower |
| Price per 1M tokens (in / out) | $5.00 / $25.0 | $2.00 / $6.00 | |
| Input modalities | Text, Image | Text, Image, Video |
Qwen3.8 Max vs Claude Opus 5 (Low): 2.0% more intelligence, 103.2% more cost to run the AA benchmark, and 449.1% 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.
- Qwen3.8 Max is off the frontier: at the same or lower cost, Kimi K3.1 Pro scores 55.10 for $3117.
Claude Opus 5 (Low)Qwen3.8 MaxToday'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/qwen3-8-max-0803 · Markdown: /api/v1/compare/claude-opus-5-low/qwen3-8-max-0803?format=md · llms.txt · agent skill