Claude Sonnet 5 (Medium) vs Gemini 4 Argon (High)
Which is better for the money: Claude Sonnet 5 (Medium) 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 24.5 points higher (52.6 vs 28.1) but costs 2.0× as much to run the benchmark ($2407 vs $1218; flagship vs premium cost classes). Pick Gemini 4 Argon (High) when the extra intelligence is worth the premium, otherwise Claude Sonnet 5 (Medium).
| Metric | Claude Sonnet 5 (Medium) | Gemini 4 Argon (High) | Difference |
|---|---|---|---|
| Intelligence (higher is better) | 28.1 | 52.6 | +87.2% Gemini 4 Argon (High) is 87.2% more intelligent |
| Total AA cost (lower is better) | $1,218.17 | $2,407.24 | +97.6% Gemini 4 Argon (High) is 97.6% more expensive |
| End-to-end time (lower is better) | 9.27s | 64.86s | +599.7% Gemini 4 Argon (High) is 599.7% 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 (Medium): 87.2% more intelligence, 97.6% more cost to run the AA benchmark, and 599.7% slower end-to-end.
Today's Pareto frontier
Against the frontier
- Claude Sonnet 5 (Medium) is off the frontier: at the same or lower cost, GPT-6.1 Sol (Max) scores 51.80 for $1082.
- 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 (Medium)Gemini 4 Argon (High)Today's Pareto frontierEvery other model
Matchup
Compare something else
Agents:
Accept: text/markdown or ?format=md returns this page as Markdown. JSON: /api/v1/compare/claude-sonnet-5-medium/gemini-4-argon · Markdown: /api/v1/compare/claude-sonnet-5-medium/gemini-4-argon?format=md · llms.txt · agent skill