Claude Opus 5 (Max) vs Gemini 3.8 Flash (Medium)
Which is better for the money: Claude Opus 5 (Max) by Anthropic or Gemini 3.8 Flash (Medium) by Google? 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 (Max) scores 11.0 points higher (50.8 vs 39.8) but costs 6.6× as much to run the benchmark ($7275 vs $1100; flagship vs premium cost classes). They are not alternatives at one budget: pick Claude Opus 5 (Max) when you need intelligence above 39.8, and Gemini 3.8 Flash (Medium) when 39.8 is enough.
| Metric | Claude Opus 5 (Max) | Gemini 3.8 Flash (Medium) | Difference |
|---|---|---|---|
| Intelligence (higher is better) | 50.8 | 39.8 | −21.7% Gemini 3.8 Flash (Med… is 21.7% less intelligent |
| Total AA cost (lower is better) | $7,274.74 | $1,100.06 | −84.9% Gemini 3.8 Flash (Med… is 84.9% cheaper |
| End-to-end time (lower is better) | 49.99s | Not reported | — not comparable |
| Price per 1M tokens (in / out) | $5.00 / $25.0 | $0.75 / $3.75 | |
| Input modalities | Text, Image | Text, Image, Speech, Video |
Gemini 3.8 Flash (Medium) vs Claude Opus 5 (Max): 21.7% less intelligence, 84.9% less cost to run the AA benchmark, and end-to-end time not fully reported.
Today's Pareto frontier
Against the frontier
- Claude Opus 5 (Max) is off the frontier: at the same or lower cost, Claude Opus 5.5 (Xhigh, Default Fallback) scores 56.00 for $4057.
- Gemini 3.8 Flash (Medium) is off the frontier: at the same or lower cost, GPT-6.1 Sol (Max) scores 51.80 for $1082.
Claude Opus 5 (Max)Gemini 3.8 Flash (Medium)Today's Pareto frontierEvery other model
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