Claude Sonnet 5.5 (Medium, Default Fallback) vs Gemini 4 Argon (High)
Which is better for the money: Claude Sonnet 5.5 (Medium, Default Fallback) by Anthropic or Gemini 4 Argon (High) 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
Gemini 4 Argon (High) scores 11.8 points higher (52.6 vs 40.8) but costs 3.9× as much to run the benchmark ($2407 vs $622; flagship vs premium cost classes). They are not alternatives at one budget: pick Gemini 4 Argon (High) when you need intelligence above 40.8, and Claude Sonnet 5.5 (Medium, Default Fall… when 40.8 is enough.
| Metric | Claude Sonnet 5.5 (Medium, Default Fallback) | Gemini 4 Argon (High) | Difference |
|---|---|---|---|
| Intelligence (higher is better) | 40.8 | 52.6 | +28.9% Gemini 4 Argon (High) is 28.9% more intelligent |
| Total AA cost (lower is better) | $622.28 | $2,407.24 | +286.8% Gemini 4 Argon (High) is 3.9× more expensive |
| End-to-end time (lower is better) | 5.98s | 63.35s | +959.4% Gemini 4 Argon (High) is 959.4% slower |
| Price per 1M tokens (in / out) | $2.00 / $10.0 | $2.00 / $10.0 | |
| Input modalities | Text, Image | Text, Image |
Gemini 4 Argon (High) vs Claude Sonnet 5.5 (Medium, Default Fallback): 28.9% more intelligence, 286.8% more cost to run the AA benchmark, and 959.4% slower end-to-end.
Today's Pareto frontier
Against the frontier
- Claude Sonnet 5.5 (Medium, Default Fallback) is off the frontier: at the same or lower cost, GPT-6.1 Sol (High) scores 50.20 for $521.
- Gemini 4 Argon (High) is off the frontier: at the same or lower cost, Claude Opus 5.5 (High, Default Fallback) scores 53.60 for $2172.
Claude Sonnet 5.5 (Medium, Default Fallback)Gemini 4 Argon (High)Today's Pareto frontierEvery other model
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